


Ship of the Line: Far Traveler

by Worldmaker



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Stargate SG-1
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:35:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25045501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Worldmaker/pseuds/Worldmaker
Summary: My response to Zaion's Ship of the Line challenge on Twisting the Hellmouth. The Scoobies wake up after Halloween to find themselves in orbit, at the controls of a powerful warship from a thousand years in the future. How will their new circumstances affect a 21st Century Earth that is already embroiled in a secret interstellar war? Rated M for mature language and situations.
Kudos: 20





	1. Orbit

**xxXXXxx**

_"The only thing you can count on is that every day unexpected things happen, and it's a true surprise when you have a day where it doesn't." – Joan Rivers_

**xxXXXxx**

**Above  
Date Irrelevant  
Time Irrelevant**

The being known to Humans during the Roman period as Janus (it was only one of its names, of course; immortal, higher beings tended to collect names like Humans collected little packets of soy sauce from Chinese restaurants) yawned – or rather, he did the closest thing an ethereal godlike being could do to yawning. What he did was not a true yawn, as that was an activity that only mortal beings took part in. But it was the moral equivalent. He stretched – which also wasn't a stretch, of course – and wondered for a moment what it was that was poking at him. It was almost like something was trying to get his attention.

Some unimportant mortal sorcerer was casting a spell and wanted Janus to lend him some power to make it work. It was a standard thing, these days. All the temples where Humans used to worship him as a god were gone, but still the Sorcerers…

**_Hold the fucking phone…_** That wasn't actually what Janus said to himself, of course. The concept of a "phone" was utterly irrelevant when talking about an immortal godlike being. What Janus actually said was spoken – well, not spoken as such, but you get the idea – in a manner and in a language that Humans were not physically capable of grasping. But the idea was the same. Something about the spell wasn't right. Janus took another look, a deep, deep look, into the structure of the spell. **_Oh, for fuck's sake. Again? What does a god have to do around here…?_**

Janus was tired of this bullshit. Assholes calling on him night and day to work some feat of magic – and again, these were not the concepts the being used when thinking to itself, but are the closest convenient concepts Humans are capable of understanding – night and day, thinking that somehow Janus was a trickster god who reveled in the chaos. No, that was Discordia, who oversaw strife, disruption, and, well, chaos for crying out loud. Or maybe even Bacchus, though he was more into practical jokes and parties. **_I'm the fucking god of transitions. Doorways. Constructive change. Making improvements. Beginnings and endings. I'm not some jumped up…._**

Janus sighed. He counted to infinity, twice, all the while taking what the silly humans with their silly assumptions would call a long, deep breath. Okay, he didn't actually… well, you get the idea by now. Janus sighed, and contemplated what the Sorcerer wanted. This didn't take any time at all, of course. The gods operated on a time scale that Humans would label "Planck Time", so Janus could – and sometimes did – take as long as he liked to think about things. It was really beginning to wear on him how often this sort of thing happened. Someone wanted to cause some trouble, and they invoked Janus's name. Usually, he'd turn down the request, but he was required by Ancient Compact to consider it regardless.

The god examined the spell and the specific request. That is, what the spell was supposed to accomplish. **_This putz wants to change everyone into whatever they costume they are wearing during a celebration of Samhain. Why isn't he calling on Saitada… or maybe Madb?_** He looked closer at the spell. It did technically fall under his purview, since it was all about changing things from one into another. And technically this would be a beginning, as many mortal lives would be changed to the point of being utterly different afterward…

**_And it's going to affect several of the champions who'd been chosen by those arrogant wankers who dared to call themselves 'the Powers that Be' as if they were the only divine beings in the omniverse. Who wouldn't want to stick it to those douche-nozzles?_ **

Giving what on a Human would be a dangerously smirking grin, Janus reached out and grasped the spell in one hand. Stared at it for a moment. Then the god nodded to himself and muddled around with the spell. Just a little, mind you. Just some basic alterations to the parameters. **_Oh, this is going to be great. A complete Rogering of those arrogant pricks' 'Great Plan.' Let's see them whine about their precious balance now! Powers-That-Fucking-Need-a-Good-Kick, that's what they are!_**

**xxXXXxx**

**In Earth Orbit, 58,000 km Above the Southern Coast of California  
November 1, 1997  
08:51:13 GMT**

"Captain Samson."

Other than the ever-present background hum of electronics and far-away engines, there was no response.

"Captain Samson." A bit more forcefully, more determined, but not a yell. Definitely a statement, though. Still no response.

"BROCK!" This time the voice was yelling. This time there was a response. A physical one. Xander Harris jerked, his eyes coming open. They were still blurry and all he could see was a white ceiling above him. He felt… "mushy" was the best way to describe it, though even that odd choice of words wasn't totally correct. Someone was talking to him. A polite someone, with a soft, kind-sounding voice. Whoever it was, it was a girl. She sounded young. You could tell this was the type of girl who smiled a lot, just from the sound of her voice. A very pleasant voice.

Xander lifted a hand to his face and vaguely rubbed at his eyes. It took more of an effort to do this than it normally did.

"Captain Samson, there is an emergency and I need you."

The voice was calm again, but insistent. Xander had no idea who this Captain Samson was that the voice was talking to, but there was a nagging something in the back of his head telling him to say something. "Mmyah?" was all he managed. He sat up in his chair and blinked, slightly more coherent. But only slightly. "Whaas?"

"Captain, you must respond. We are on a collision course with the planet below us, and most of the crew has vanished into thin air. I can move us into a safe orbit, but I am still on standard operational lock-out. I need your authorization to take control of the ship, or we're all going to die."

Confused now, Xander looked around. He was sitting in the center of an oval-shaped room that was so clean it almost sparkled. There were fancy, futuristic consoles in the walls, two more in front of him separated from his position by a pair of chairs that seemed bolted to the floor. One of those chairs was inhabited by a figure slumped over their console.

_Other people? There are other people here?_ Alex looked around. There were three other people he could see, and they were all unconscious – or maybe dead, but he was hoping for unconscious. The first was the person in the seat in front of him. Xander couldn't see the person's face, but from the back, he thought the person was female. And tall, very tall, judged from how much of the console she covered while slumped over. Her arms seemed longer than they should be, but he quickly realized that this was a trick of her height. She was still in proportion, for someone who was over seven feet tall. The woman's pale white hair - about all he could see of her other than her back - was long and had been looped up closer to her head in looping braids, situated in a rather exotic style. And she was wearing a uniform.

He looked down at himself, bringing one of his hands up to touch his chest. He, too, was wearing a uniform, and it was mostly the same design and color as the seated woman was wearing. But there was something wrong about what he was seeing. Xander blinked, wondering what it was. He felt off. His entire body felt wrong, somehow.

There was another woman slumped over in the chair next to the one he was sitting in. She was…

"Captain Samson, I hate to nag you, sir, but can I have your authorization?" The voice was insistent and caused Xander to look around him in confusion.

"Authorization?" Xander asked. His gaze fell on the big wall-to-ceiling window at the front of the room. No, it wasn't a window, it was a holographic projection. Whatever it was, it was curved, like the wall, perhaps fifteen feet wide, and at least nine feet tall. And there, in the center of the window, approaching more rapidly than Xander thought comfortable, was the Earth. The words _rapidly approaching_ bounced around his head for a moment, and he began to feel the first inklings of panic.

"What the hell?!" Xander sat up abruptly, in shock. He stared at the Earth – a large, bright, white-and-blue view of the Earth that was looming threateningly close. _Are we crashing into the Earth? How? Why? Huh?_

"Captain, there's no time! I need your authorization." The voice was still soft and polite, but still carried the tones of urgency. "I need you to authorize full automated navigational control and I need you to do it right now. We're about to hit the atmosphere and without active piloting control, that would be very bad." that polite smiling girl's voice – stayed pleasant all the while foretelling doom.

_Right. Get the answers later. Issue the authorization now,_ Xander!he thought to himself. The voice wanted to take control of the ship and stop them from crashing into the Earth. Right. Xander didn't know if any of this was real, but he was from Sunnydale, a town in which 'better safe than sorry' was a survival tactic. He straightened in his seat.

Xander jumped to his feet. "Authorization 90242 Samson Beta 44 Unshackle!" Xander said, blurting out the words and numbers as quickly as he could. _What in the actual fuck? Where the fuck did that come from _Xander had no idea where it came from, but he knew just what to say. Like the rest of the situation, he had no clue what was going on. _Am I on a spaceship? How did I get on a spaceship? Where's Willow and Buffy?___

____

____

Trying to remember the events that led him to being here caused Xander's brain to explode. His thoughts were suddenly filled with scenes of ray guns and monsters, and a starship captain gathering his crew together to transport them up to the ship. Mostly what he was remembering was a lot of confusion. Not being sure of what was happening. But there were other things in his mind now, too. Mathematical equations, and physics, command codes and languages, astronomical phenomena and star charts. Esoteric knowledge he'd never even dreamed of. Minor details he'd never imagined he'd take for granted.

The Earth was already moving out of center on the screen and was receding slightly. "Course corrected. Set for high orbit, propulsion set at Mark 2. All non-essential power routed to shields. We're going to brush the atmosphere, but we're not going to nosedive into it." The girl's voice said. Xander looked around, realizing that the voice seemed to be coming from the walls.

_Not a girl. An artificial intelligence named Dawn. The AI for the ICS Far Traveler. His command. His ship. He was the captain._

"Wait… what?" Xander asked himself. He had no idea how he knew any of this. The knowledge just sort of sat there in his memory until needed, and only then popped into the front of his head where he could access it.

"Captain? Did you have a question, sir?"

"Sorry, Dawn. Talking to myself. It's nothing."

"Very well, sir."

A muffled grown brought his attention back to the other people in the room. The person at the control console sat up, holding her head in her hands. Xander stood, wanting to help them, when he was stopped by a snorting inhale from the woman in the chair he had just left. She sat up, blinking as she looked at him. The third person in the room, a man, lying on his back near a side console, rolled over onto his hands and knees. Xander finally got a look at his face. It was Jonathan Levinson – a pretty good guy and a fantastic DM on the odd occasions he and Willow and Jessie would join Jono's game.

"Xander?" At the sound of her voice, Xander realized that the woman who had been in the chair next to his was Buffy Summers, but different. Buffy' skin was a tawny gold, and her hair was longer and fell down her back like a waterfall. It showed no signs of dark roots, as was normal for Buffy. The sides of her head here bare, as if shaved clean, and instead of hair there were a series of markings, like a leopard's spots, that covered her scalp and her neck. Buffy's face had black lines moving around her nose and eyes like a tiger's contrasting with the tawny color of her skin. "Xander, what's going on? Where are we?"

Buffy slowly, and slightly unsteadily, climbed to her feet, revealing what might be the strangest changes in the young woman that Xander could see. First off, she was suddenly taller than he was, by maybe a foot. But the second change… He couldn't help it. He stared at her. His eyes locked onto her chest and would not move away. "Is something wrong? Xander, you're staring. Why are you staring at my boobs?" Buffy looked down, where Xander's eyes were locked, and immediately stopped talking. Her mouth dropped open in shock.

Xander forced himself to tear his gaze away from her boobs and tried to meet her eyes but couldn't as she herself was staring at her breasts. All four of them. They were visibly larger than her usual rack, and they were doubled, with one pair positioned lower on her torso than the first.

"What!?" Buffy shouted. "Where the hell did I get extra boobs? Xander!" She finally had looked at him. "Why are you so short! When did you get all… wall-like!?"

Xander looked down at himself and finally noticed that was what was different. Not only was he about a foot shorter than Buffy – who was suddenly close to six feet tall, he estimated – but he was at least three feet wide. He met her gaze again, only to goggle at something he hadn't noticed before. "Buffy, your eyes… they're… they're white!"

"What? What about my eyes?" Buffy put a hand up to her face, only to recoil when she noticed the striped markings on the back of it.

"You... uh... the pupils are still there, but the rest of your eye is pure white... its like the color part gave up." Xander was still staring, shocked.

"Ugh…. Guys, can we be less shouty?" The tall white-haired woman in the command console seat turned – the chair itself rotating completely around. She still had a hand to her forehead. "I've got a killer headache and all the noise isn't helping."

_"WILLOW?"_ Xander shouted in alarm. His best friend's skin, once the typical pale peach of all redheads, was now almost milk-white, and her eyes were pink. His exclamation was met by Buffy's own shout.

Willow stood, slowly, staring at her hands, which were as pale as the rest of her. "Guys, what's happening? What happened to us?" They all stared at her, or more specifically stared up at her. Willow Rosenberg was now somewhere near seven feet tall.

"You're all different," a voice intruded. It was Jonathan, finally entering the conversation. The trio turned toward him, watching as the young man stared down at himself, looking at his hands and then patting himself down as if searching for a weapon. "I think I'm still myself. I mean, no changes I can tell. Can you guys see anything?"

It was Xander who finally spoke. "Uh, well, you look… uh… a couple of years older, Jono." They all did. Not only was Willow a giant albino, Xander a dwarf-sized linebacker, and Buffy covered in tiger stripes (and Xander avoided thinking about the extra boobage the Slayer now possessed) but they all look like they'd aged at least ten years.

"I'm tall! And white! I'm like, chalk white!" Willow was still staring at her hands.

"Your eyes are pink, too." Buffy noted.

"I'm an albino?" Willow asked, surprised. Then she seemed to settle in on herself. "Of course, I'm an albino. I'm from Kimberly's World." She paused, then, _"I'm from where?"_

"Let me guess," Xander said. "Sudden influx of new knowledge that is slowly filling in the gaps?" Willow nodded, and when Xander looked over at them, so did Buffy and Jonathan. He looked down at his own hands. "I'm Captain Brock Samson." Everyone snorted at the melodramatics of the name. "I'm only five feet tall, but I'm built like a wall. It's because I come from Volkov, where the gravity is 1.62. After a thousand years, humanity has adapted."

He looked to Willow. "Lieutenant Commander Cassiopeia West. Ship's operations officer and second officer. You're from Kimberly's World, a planet with only .62 gravity compared to Earth, which explains your height, and where something like 90% of the population are all albinos for some reason lost to history."

He turned to Buffy. "Commander Cooling Breeze on a Summer's Day, generally referred to as 'Commander Summer' by everyone on the crew. My executive officer. You're a Pelkon, a mammalian humanoid alien species native to planet Zoosh in the Mweena system, better known to humans as Gilese 357. Pelkons are evolved from an ambush predator species. Because of common seeding by the P!k Gardeners millions of years ago, Pelkons and humans share close to 50% of their DNA." The facts just sort of popped into his head as he spoke them.

Xander turned to Jonathan. "And you're Lieutenant Dack Brandenberger, helmsman and navigator. You're from earth, right?"

Jonathan nodded. "Apparently I'm from the Great Lakes Metroplex. What used to be Chicago and Gary and a couple of other cities bordering on the Great Lakes. But you know… I'm not. I was born in Sunnydale. And Willow's not from another planet, and Buffy isn't an alien." Jonathan's brow furrowed for a second. "You're not an alien, are you?"

She nodded her head. "You're right! I'm from Los Angeles, not from Planet Woosh! And none of that is who we really are. I'm not Cool Wind Whatever, you're not Dack Bingelbanger, she's not Castanza Something, and Xander isn't Brick Hardcheese. But I remember growing up on Woosh, near a place called Pizarral, in a house on a beach. Why would I remember things that never happened?"

All four shared a giggle at Buffy's utter butchery of the names, but the question remained. "We need to figure out what's going on."

"Yeah," Xander added. "And what we're doing in space."

"Space?" Willow straightened up, which was impressive given her new height. She looked around fitfully, finally spotting the viewscreen. "Wow. That's… that's Earth."

"Captain, should I summon medical personnel? You're all acting very odd. Are you suffering from amnesia?" Dawn's voice interrupted. The girls and Jonathan started once, and then seemed to settle as the knowledge of who and what Dawn was popped into their minds.

"This could be a problem." Willow said.

Xander nodded. "Dawn, Command Override Two Seven Four Alpha Eight Delta, Samson Authorize Delta."

When Dawn spoke again, it was with the flat and artificial voice of a Virtual Intelligence, rather than a true AI. "Awaiting input."

Xander waved to Willow, who cleared her throat before continuing. "Dawn, accept all input regarding alternate identifies for the crew." In addition to the identities you have on record, accept the existence of alternate identities as well. Monitor contextual clues to guide you when it comes to these secondary identities. Confirm."

"Input confirmed."

"Dawn, return to standard operational mode." Xander said.

"Thank you, Captain. The new instructions have been assimilated into my core programming. Should I apply the new directives to the other people onboard?

"Wait… did you just say that there are other people on the ship?" Xander asked. "It's not just us?"

"Captain, my internal sensors tell me that currently there are nine crewman and one civilian onboard. This represents a loss of 99.00025% of the crew. Where the rest of them went, I cannot tell you. But aside from yourself, Commander Summer, Lieutenant Commander West, and Lieutenant Brandenberger, my internal sensors show that Doctors Gibbs and Dunbar are present in the medical bay, Chief Engineer Blaylock is in Engineering, and Lieutenant Polk and Chief Petty Officer Castor are in turbo-lift eleven. While Commander Blaylock hasn't moved, her life signs are stable. The doctors have both awoken, and they are discussing their situation between them. Lieutenant Polk and CPO Castor are only just beginning to wake up from their previously unconscious state."

"And… um… what about the civilian?" Buffy asked.

"A local from the planet below that you rescued from an attacker. Doctor Dunbar was insistent she bring the civilian up to the Far Traveler for treatment. While I do not have full information on her, she gave her name as 'Cordelia' before she was rendered unconscious in preparation for treatment. Doctor Gibbs's records show that she did that because the civilian was 'spouting off crazy talk' no doubt due to the trauma of her attack."

"Cordelia?" Willow said. The four crew present shared a look. Willow hesitated for a moment, then continued. "Xander, if we ended up here, maybe the others are folks from Sunnydale too. We should…"

"Yeah." Xander nodded. "Dawn, please contact all crew members not present. Get them up and moving if they aren't already. We need a meeting of the remaining staff in the conference room in five minutes. And have Cordelia woken up. She needs to sit in on this meeting."

**xxXXXxx**

**Stargate Program Base, Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado  
November 1, 1997  
09:03:45 GMT**

Major-General George Hammond heard his executive officer's voice shout, "Ten-shut!" as he entered the room, and both Colonel O'Neill and Captain Carter immediately snapped two. Teal'c rose from his seat, but Dr. Jackson remained seated. Technically, the linguist had a right to, since he was a civilian, but it still sort of irked Hammond. The general wasn't the type of martinet officer who took offense at every little thing, but being acknowledged as Jackson's superior would have been nice, since the man – civilian or not – did work for the military if only as a consultant.

"Carry on." As he strode to the head of the table, his officers relaxed and sat back down, as did the alien Teal'c. Once seated, he took a moment to center himself and asked, "Alright, Captain, what do we have?"

"Sir," Captain Samantha Carter started. "Approximately twenty minutes ago, a large spacecraft of unknown make and origin appeared in orbit over the Pacific Coast of California. It was caught by several of our satellite cameras, as well as by at least one civilian astronomer and photographed." The Captain passed out folders to each member of SG-1 and the general.

Hammond immediately leafed through the photos in the folder, ignoring the briefing sheet for now.

"Has that been taken care of?" Hammond asked, referring to the security breach.

"Yes, sir." It was his XO, Colonel Jack O'Neill who answered. "Major Davis's boys got in touch with the astronomer, one Billie – short for Wilhelmina, apparently – Stroud and informed her of the classified nature of the pictures she took. They grabbed her camera, all the film stock, her telescope, everything. Davis told me they paid her off and got her to sign an NDA." O'Neil concluded by muttering, "… had to write her a check for $150,000…" which got everyone around the table grinning. Funny how a payout was the best grease when it came to making military-civilian relations smoother.

Hammond nodded, still staring at the pictures. It was a fuzzy, black and white image of the intruding craft. From the angle of the photograph, the main body of the intruder was a a narrow, arrowhead shape that was pierced by four spheres – three smaller than the forth, and in a triangular shape near the center of the wedge, the fourth nearly twice as large as the other three and placed at the base of the "triangle" formed by them, toward the rear of the craft. There were other structures running along the top and bottom of the wedge, and a symbol and some writing on the largest sphere, but otherwise he didn't recognize anything about it.

"Okay, people… someone tell me something I don't already know." Hammond looked to Teal'c. "Is this ship familiar to you, Teal'c?"

"No, GeneralHammond, it is not. It is unlike any Goa'uld starship I have ever seen. Neither does it match any species the Goa'ald have ever encountered that I know of." Teal'c stared at the photograph for a moment, then looked up to meet the general's eyes. "I do believe this is an entirely new species."

"So, we have a new neighbor who out of the blue decided to come knocking." Colonel O'Neill said. "Do we have any info on it at all other than it looks like someone shoved some tennis balls and a bowling ball through a paper airplane?"

"Well, sir, the alien is currently in a stable hyperbolic orbit a little over 800 kilometers up. As I said, we first spotted it over the Pacific Coast of California, but it has since passed over North America and over the horizon. At its present speed, it'll be over us again in about 30 minutes."

O'Neill whistled quietly. "Going quite the clip."

"Uh, yes sir, it is. Its moving faster than escape velocity for the earth but seems to be slowing." Carter nodded. "We're still working on a deceleration rate on that. Until we have that, we can't be sure of their final positioning in orbit."

"Anything else, Captain?" Hammond picked up the briefing sheet and skimmed it. He preferred getting his briefings verbally than being forced to read everything.

"Sir, from what we can tell, the ship is between 900 and 950 meters long. The main hull – the wedge, that is, is thirty meters thick on average. It tapers to only six meters at the prow and is nearly fifty-five meters thick at the stern. The smaller spheres are each seventy meters in radius, while the larger sphere is 160 meters radius. This is only speculation, but if this were a ship we constructed, with those proportions, there could possibly be a crew of ten or twelve thousand aboard," Carter concluded.

"Do you think it's a human-made ship, made by our cousins from…" O'Neill pointed upward.

"That's our best guess at this point. I mean, humans are the most numerous form of intelligent life we've found so far, so the boys in imaging are thinking it's from some planet we just haven't met yet."

"Wonder why they're here." O'Neill picked up the primary picture again. "They passed right over North America and didn't start dropping crowbars from orbit, so I guess that's a good sign, right?"

"We're not picking up any signals," Carter continued, "but the craft is leaving a trail of heavy particles in its wake. Like an engine exhaust. But I don't see any exhaust ports. They may not exist, somehow, or they might be placed out of sight of the cameras, or perhaps their too small to be seen. I don't know. We've spotted what looks like a ring of lights on each of the spheres at about 45 degrees up the ball. They might be windows. Of course, they could just as easily be gun ports. The large sphere has a symbol on its visible side, along with what looks like some lettering."

"Speaking of gun ports, do we…." O'Neill trailed off as Carter was already shaking her head.

"No, sir, there is nothing that gives us any clues regarding the ship's offensive or defensive capabilities, other than perhaps the spectra-analysis results. Apparently, the hull of this vessel is made of trinium alloyed with something we haven't encountered before."

Jack whistled again. "Tough bird."

Carter only nodded. "Yes, sir."

She indicated the last of the photos in the file. The symbol was a light-colored square, with a dark-colored solar disk – rays coming out of the sun at regular intervals. The letters were placed at the base of the symbol. "That might be an ensign of some sort. Like a flag, but you wouldn't fly a flag in space, naturally."

"Right..." O'Neill said. "So they painted it on the hull. Flash, I suppose."

Daniel Jackson had pulled a magnifying glass out of his pocket and was peering closely at the lettering. "Huh. Interesting.' He stared for a moment more, then looked up. "Uh, General…" He stopped speaking, surprised that everyone was already looking at him.

"Yes, Dr. Jackson?"

"Uh, yeah. I'm not sure… I mean, I'd want to see a clearer picture, but… there's something odd about these letters, sir. I think they're part of an artificial language."

"What do you mean, 'artificial language,' Daniel?" O'Neill gave Jackson a puzzled look. "You think it was made up? I thought that applied to all languages."

"Well… uh… yes and no, Jack. Yes, all languages originated somewhere and were made up sounds and then evolved into greater complexity." Daniel explained, as if to a two year old. "What I mean is, I don't think this is its own language. I think its… look…" Daniel paused. "Okay, are you familiar with Aurebesh?"

"What now?"

"Ah." Teal'c brightened up. "You refer to the alphabet used in the Star Wars films. Yes, I am familiar with it. The creators of Star Wars invented a new alphabet for the English language and used it in their films as an indicator that the society we were seeing was not the standard human society."

"Right, exactly. Now, look." He handed Jack his magnifying glass. "The first letter is a leaning slash. That could be anything, but I'm betting it stands for an I. The second letter is a triangle with a crossbar. That's an A. The third letter…"

"Looks a little bit like an S."

"Precisely, and when you look at some of the other letters, I recognize something that's vaguely suggestive of an O, a V, and a couple of L's." Daniel took a deep breath, as he always did before he said something he wasn't sure that the rest of the team would buy. "General, I think this ship was made by humans, and I think when we meet them, they'll be speaking English. As a native language, I mean. It suggests not only a human crew, but a human crew from a planet whose population was taken from Earth by the Goa'uld relatively recently, perhaps in the last five hundred years or so."

Everyone was silent for a moment, contemplating Daniel's suggestion. Finally, the linguist cleared his throat. "Are we doing anything to communicate with them?"

The general looked at his wristwatch, then nodded toward Doctor Jackson. "We're scheduled to start transmitting a greeting to them, along with an inquiry regarding their intentions, on a constant loop as soon as they are back in our sky, and we'll keep it going until they get back to us. NASA has been ordered to run an emergency prep on the shuttle, but that's still going to take a week."

"They probably shouldn't bother, sir," Carter said. That got everyone's attention.

"And why is that Captain?"

She looked at the general, then around the room, meeting everyone's gaze. "Well, sir… while I can't tell you specifics about the ship itself, one thing I can tell you right off the bat is nothing we have on earth is capable of matching those velocities. No matter what we send up there it would blow past without really noticing. Unless they are willing to come to us… which is a big if… we might as well wait for them to contact us here on the ground."

The general stewed on that for a moment. "I'll relay that up the chain." He stood, and so did everyone else in the room except Daniel Jackson. "Okay, people, let's get to work."

**xxXXXxx**

**In Earth Orbit, 846 km Above Ontario  
November 1, 1997  
09:03:52 GMT**

The first thing everyone did when they reached the conference room was grab something to eat.

Buffy had started the stampede. Instead of heading to the table like Jonathan, Xander, and Willow had, she immediately strode – that was the only word for it – to a console on the far wall and pushed a button. A slot in the wall about the size of a car's glove compartment opened up in the wall. A neighboring screen lit up with a long bulleted list of items. Buffy scrolled through these rapidly.

"What're ya doin, Buffster?" Xander asked.

"I'm starving. Figured while we tried to figure all of this out, I'd get something to eat." At Buffy's words, everyone looked at everyone else. Jonathan and Willow actually giggled.

"Great idea, Buffy." Willow stood and joined her. "Think they do kosher?" Five minutes later, they were all seated and munching on the various meals they chose. Xander was scandalized that the Far Traveler's food processors had an appalling lack of junk food. No twinkies. Not even a Hostess fruit pie. He ended up going with a Reuben sandwich and some English-style chips… they were the closest thing he could find to actual potato chips.

When he had a chance, he was definitely going to introduce the food synthesizers to 20th Century American cuisine. Assuming he ever got the chance, that is.

Slowly, the rest of the people onboard drifted in. Xander recognized most of them. Chief Engineer Blaylock turned out to be their High School computer teacher, Ms. Calendar. The two doctors, Gibbs and Dunbar, were his classmates, Amy Madison and Theresa Klusmeyer, respectively. And lastly, Lieutenant Polk and Chief Petty Officer Castor turned out to be the Welles brothers, Tucker and Andrew. Xander felt good about this, as he was friendly with all of them, if not actual friends.

Ten minutes later, with everyone fed and watered, Xander sat back from his plate and thought for a moment. "Andre, could you do us all a favor and collect up the refuse and drop it in the reclaimer, please. And if anyone wants to refresh their drink, go ahead. We need all need to talk some things over and I suspect its going to take a while."

A couple of them, Willow, Ms. Calendar, and Tucker Welles, took him up on it. The others sat where they were.

When everyone was back in their seat, he cleared his throat. "Okay, let's get started. For those of you who haven't figured it out, we're in space on some kind of starship." He tapped twice on the tabletop, bringing up a keyboard display, then punched in a command. The space above the table was filled with a hologram of the earth and the moon, as lifelike as if it was really there. A small white dot, barely visible, showed the current position of the Far Traveler in orbit. "That's Earth, that's Luna, and there's us, in orbit." As they watched the tiny white dot of light passed over the Pacific Ocean on a diagonal orbit that had their ship passing over the Pacific Ocean on a north-by northeasterly course.

"Yeah, but how did we get up here," Ms. Calendar added.

"I checked the log," Jonathan said, swallowing a forkful of what looked like lasagna. "It shows that the Captain and the senior staff were on a diplomatic away mission. When a riot broke out, the ship was contacted and the senior staff were beamed up via the Transmat system."

"We're going to end up calling them transporters. I know it." Amy added. "Way too many possible Star Trek references."

"Yeah, but that's cool because we're, like, living it in real life. It would be cooler if it were Star Wars, but we can't have everything." Andrew Welles was grinning to beat the band. He wasn't bouncing in his seat, which is what Xander thought the ultra-geekazoid would be doing, but he was still clearly excited.

"So… what, we're in a _Star Trek_ episode?" Theresa Klusmeyer's face showed nothing but puzzlement. "How would that be possible?"

"No, its not _Star Trek…_ " Andrew began, only for Buffy to interrupt him.

"Yeah, uh, Theresa, right? Okay, so here's how it goes. Magic exists. So do vampires, werewolves, demons, and pretty much all the monsters you've ever heard of. Except leprechauns, apparently." Buffy shrugged. "It's a thing."

Theresa seemed even more confused. "You're saying magic is real, and that's why we're in a _Star Trek_ episode?"

"ITS NOT STAR TREK!" Andrew couldn't keep it in, and his shout caused everyone to jump. "It's not! Its not _Star Wars_ either. Its _Far Traveler!_ It's different."

"Never heard of it." Xander deadpanned. Though now that Andrew had said something… "Wait… was that a TV movie or something?"

"It was a failed pilot." Andrew said, in his element. "A comic book writer named K. Mitchell Skrzypczynski created it. From what I've heard, it had this enormous backstory about wars between humans and aliens, and elder races, and was all going to be set on this starship that was traveling around the edges of known space. He apparently had this entire developed universe for it."

"So, what happened?" Amy asked. "You said it was a failed pilot?"

"Yeah." Andrew nodded. "Most people who watched it found it a bit derivative of _Star Trek_. I mean, a crew of intrepid heroes with intrepid hero names flying around fighting evil? That's _Trek_ in a nutshell."

"Uh… okay." Willow said. "Um… that doesn't explain what we are all doing here. In space, I mean. How we got here and why this ship. I mean, I don't remember anyone doing a spell."

Tucker glanced at his brother. "Last thing I remember clearly before waking up here was heading for Ted Chervin's house. He and Ginger were throwing a Halloween party. Then suddenly, I'm unconscious in an elevator and Dawn's telling us to wake up because we're needed. How about you guys?"

"I was with Jonathan," Andrew said, and Jonathan nodded. "We had taken a break from our all-night D&D game to make a snack run to the local Quick-E-Mart. You know, potato chips, soda, a couple of Snickers bars. Stuff like that. I remember we were about a block away from the store, talking about what the best Wizard spell to use against minotaurs was. Then I was in the elevator with Tucker."

"Yeah," Jonathan confirmed. "Andrew was arguing for the Lightning Bolt spell over the Fireball and then suddenly, I'm on the floor on the bridge. It was scary."

"I was heading to Ginger's party too," Theresa said. "I'd just climbed into my car and turned the key. Then suddenly the medical bay.

"I was escorting a troop of kids, taking them around trick-or-treating." Ms. Calendar said. From the vague look on her face, she was thinking about something and hadn't come to a conclusion yet.

Xander, Willow, and Buffy all nodded. "Us too," Buffy muttered.

"Devon and I were on the way to Rhonda's party, and suddenly he turned all rabid dog on me. Thank God I ran into you dweebs. I thought he was going to bite me or something. As it is he ruined my costume.' Cordelia began. She turned toward Amy and Theresa. "Do you still have it? I'm never going to get my deposit back from Party City..."

"You went to Party City for your costume? We got ours from that new place, Ethan's Party Source." Willow made a sweeping gesture encompassing her, Xander, and Buffy.

The sudden chorus of "Yeah, me too" in variation brought Xander's head up. "Wait… everyone here got their costume from Ethan's except Cordelia?"

"Aha! I think we found our common thread." Ms. Calendar exclaimed. "My costume was labeled 'starship crewman'. And here I am, Chief Engineer on an actual starship. I think I know what happened. Someone put a spell on the costumes, and we became whatever they were. Xander, I bet your costume was the same, right?"

"Yeah," Xander nodded. "That guy who ran the store, Ethan, he said they were on discount. Something about spare costumes from a…" Xander trailed off, then facepalmed.

"Xander?" Willow asked.

"They were spared costumes from a failed science fiction series. He had about a dozen of them." Xander sighed. "That explains what we're doing here. We got turned into the different characters from the show based on which costumes we wore. Its only blind luck that made me the ship's captain, or Ms. Calendar the Chief Engineer, or Amy the Chief Medical Officer."

"If this was a spell, we need to figure out how to reverse it! I can't go to school with four boobs! And look at Willow? She's all stretched out and white now! I mean, really really white for real, like the crayon." Willow dropped her head on the table, hiding her face and Buffy realized what she was saying.

"Sorry, Wills… I don't mean it like that. I just… I want to punish someone!" Buffy said, the anger in her voice clearly evident. "I need to talk to this guy, Ethan. And by 'talk' I mean break some of his bones."

"Right." Xander nodded. "Definitely some punishment needed." He paused. "Dawn, how soon will we be over Sunnydale again?"

"Captain, I have no record of any municipality on Earth named 'Sunnydale.' Could you be more specific?"

"The town we were in when this mess started. How soon will we be back over that town's airspace?" Xander asked. No Sunnydale in the Far Traveler universe. Interesting.

"Eleven minutes, Captain."

"Okay, when we are back where we started I want you to change our orbital vector so we stay above that town, all right? We are going to send an excursion down again." He looked to the other people in the crew. "Once we're over Sunnydale again, we can decide what we're doing to do."

"What do you mean, what we're doing to do?" Theresa said.

"What if we can't reverse the spell? That leaves Buffy as an alien, Willow as an albino giant, and me as a shortened heavy-worlder. How are we supposed to explain the physical changes? It would be better to just stay here."

Theresa nodded. "Okay, but I'm not physically changed like you three are. Neither are Jonathan, or Amy, or Tucker, or Ms. Calendar. I mean, sure I have all sorts of medical knowledge in my head now, but there's no reason why I can't go home. Or any of them, right? And I want to go home."

Xander was quiet for a moment before saying, "Well, we're not going to keep you here if you don't want to stay. Once we're above Sunnydale, we'll send you home. As for me, staying on board the Far Traveler and becoming a starship captain is a better choice than my shitty homelife."

Andrew Welles was almost bouncing up and down in his seat. "Oh, I'm so staying up here. Being a space hero? You better believe I'm staying here."

"Andrew, you're only fifteen. Mom would freak." His brother Tucker said, exasperated.

"Only chronologically. I mean, look at me. Theresa said there were no physical changes, but that's not true. Do I look fifteen? Physically, I'm closer to twenty-four or twenty-five." A quick look around proved that to be true. None of the teenagers looked to be teenagers anymore, even the ones who looked alien now. "So, I'm just going to tell mom and dad that, you know, I'm all grown up now and can make my own decisions."

Buffy looked to Xander, who looked to Willow. The three of them looked to Ms. Calendar, who rolled her eyes. "You should probably still tell your folks that you're alive, at least."

"I'd like to stay, if that's okay." Amy said, a bit hesitantly. "Its just me and my dad right now, and things are really tough. This situation is better for me than down there. And… uh… I was thinking of asking my dad to come up here to live. Full time, I mean."

"What? Why would you want to do that?" Buffy's question was strained, and from her voice she sounded vaguely offended. "Why would you want to drag your dad into all this weirdness."

"Buffy." Xander said, calmly. "Settle down. It's a good idea, when you think about it. In fact, it might be a good idea to have your mom come up here, too. We've got room for a crew of eight thousand, its not like we'll be crowded. Not for a while. We're eventually going to need additional crew, and there's no reason why we can't have our families up here with us. Or at least, you know, the families we want to have up here."

"I doubt my mom and dad would notice me staying up here," Willow muttered. She was answered by Jonathan's quiet agreement. That surprised her. She turned to the man and asked, "Yours ignore you, too?" Jonathan could only nod.

"But we can't just drag our parents into this! They have lives. _Normal_ lives! They deserve to be protected from all the danger and the darkness and the vampi…." Buffy cut herself off as she realized everyone was staring at her.

"Just what darkness do you think will be attacking us up here, Buffster?" Xander asked. "Space vampires?"

"I remember that episode of _Star Trek_ where there was this vampire-alien-thing that sucked all the… OW!" Andrew glared at his older brother. "Why did you stomp on my foot like that?"

"What are you dweebs going to do about high school? You know, graduating?" Cordelia asked. Her question brought a laugh from Amy.

"I've got the knowledge and skill of a fully trained and credentialed medical doctor in my head," she said. "I really am an MD, at least according to laws and regulations of the ICS. I think High School is a bit over for me."

Naturally, Cordelia zoomed right in on what was important in Amy's statement. "What's the ICS?"

"The Interstellar Coalition of Sentients. The governing body which has authority over Terra, Luna, Mars, Zoosh, Pradesh, Barbara's World, Prager, Disney's Planet, and about a hundred others." Andrew recited, once again bouncing in his seat. "And I'm not going back to school, either. I've got a I've got a doctorate in mechanical engineering."

Ms. Calendar chuckled. "High-energy physics. And from everyone's faces, I assume everyone here except Cordelia was given a little extra educational candy in their stocking with the transformation into their character?"

Everyone nodded. _A double doctorate,_ Xander thought to himself. _Law, and Interstellar Relations and Diplomacy. Not sure what good those would do be back on Earth._ He shook himself to clear his head.

"Okay, here's what we'll do. Those of us who want to go can go. Those of us who want to stay can stay as far as I'm concerned. As for other people, we'll talk to people we want to bring up here, and if they say yes, they can come. We're not going to just start randomly beaming people up, because that would be rude." A glance toward Amy. "Okay?" She nodded in response. "Good. By my estimates, we still have a good four or five minutes before we're over Sunnydale. Let's get ready to head back down."

Everyone rose as he came to his feet. Before anyone could get more than a few steps away form the table, though, Dawn spoke up. "Captain, I am being bombarded with modulated electromagnetic radiation. It began the moment we crossed over the Hawaiian Islands. They appear to be radio waves at 384.1 megahertz."

"Radio waves?" Jonathan said. "Someone's trying to talk to us."

"Probably military." Xander said. "Dawn, can you make out what they're trying to say?"

"I am sorry, Captain, but I am having to readjust my sensors." Dawn replied. "While I am capable of picking up radio waves as part of my sensor package, no one in the ICS has used radio as a means of communication in nearly four centuries."

"Right, well, do your best."

"I always do, Captain."

Xander looked to Buffy, Jonathan, and Willow. "Stations. I want to know where that signal is coming from, and what their trying to say." Xander didn't even notice how quickly they responded, as if he really was the captain of the ship. The three didn't hesitate before heading to their assigned workstations.

He turned to the Welles brothers. "Guys, you need to decide what you're going to do. If you're going to stay, I need you to double-check the ship's automated systems. Make sure something isn't going to burn out of us."

"I'll get right on it, boss." Andrew headed for the elevator. Tucker looked at Xander, then back at Andrew, and sighed. "Hold on, Andy, I'm coming with you!"

Xander turned toward the last three women. "Amy?"

"Yes, Captain?" She too responded without hesitation.

"Take Theresa and Cordelia down to the transmat center. I'm sure you remember the familiarization training you received at the academy. When we're over Sunnydale, send her home. Theresa, its been real. Talk to you later on. Who knows, maybe you'll change your mind."

"I doubt it, but who knows. Thanks, Xander." Theresa said. She turned towards Amy, but before she could do more than turn, Cordelia erupted.

"Wait! Who said I wanted to go back? I want to stay up here!"

"What?" Pretty much everyone else's face echoed Xander's shock. "Whah… Huh? Why?" Xander stared at Cordelia, unsure of what she was saying. "You're not part of the crew, you don't have anybody crawling around in your brain, you weren't morphed into an alien! Why would you want to stay here?"

"Weren't you listening to Buffy? Sunnydale is darkness and vampires! I want to stay up here where its safe. I'll explain to my parents that I have this exciting new job opportunity or something. Maybe a scholarship. I mean, this ship has all kinds of futuristic computers, right? You can train me!" Cordelia's eyes got wider as she spoke, until she started sounding downright enthusiastic.

Xander stared at her, but only for a second. "Okay, fine. You're going with Amy and Theresa. Amy?" He shifted his attention to his ship's doctor. "When you're done dropping off Theresa, take Cordy to sick bay and… I dunno… find something for her to help you with. Start her training her in basic first aid or something. We'll figure out where she fits in with the crew later on. Just… keep her out of trouble, all right?"

Cordelia's expression went from enthusiastic to superior as she abruptly "Queen C" mask back on, but Xander had spotted her interest already. Cordelia was excited about the idea of living on a spaceship. Who knew the Queen of Sunnydale High was a closet science fiction geek.

"Thanks, dweeb! You won't regret it." Cordelia, Amy, and Theresa rushed to catch the next elevator car.

"Chief? I mean, Ms. Calendar?" Xander started. Only she interrupted.

"Might as well get used to calling me chief. I'm staying up here. It just sounds like too much fun to ignore. And besides," her gaze fell on Buffy. "I want to make sure you kids don't get into too much trouble. I'll head to engineering, just in case we need to start dodging nuclear missiles or laser satellites or something." She too, followed Andrew and Tucker.

Xander nodded. His crew was responding well, and he had the satisfaction common among captains with competent crews. Oh god, I am taking this role way too seriously, he thought.

He strode over to the communications panel, where Jonathan was busily taping away on an interface. "Okay, Jono, what do we have?"

"This is a military signal for sure, Xander. I checked the historical records, and it turns out 384.1 megahertz was reserved by the government of the United States for Air Force use." Jonathan said without looking up from his screen. "Its being sent from high gain antennas in Hawaii. The modulation repeats in a constant pattern. I'd say someone recorded a message and put it on a loop. The loop will probably end when we respond."

"Can we respond? I mean, our communications array is geared for hyperwave communication, not radio."

Jonathan almost snorted. "I can rig the active sensors to emit modulated radio waves. That's not the problem." He shook his head. "Our biggest headache will be making sure we don't accidentally burn out their receivers when we finally call back. Our active sensors are geared to reach out six or seven AU at a time; that kind of power directed at a Terran radio, even from orbit? I'll be like dropping a bomb on it. I'm dropping the settings to nearly the minimum we have and I still don't know if it'll be low enough to not do damage." He glanced up at Xander. "Any idea how you're going to play this?"

"Not yet. I'm working on it." He patted the top of Jonathan's chair. "Okay, keep working, see what you can see."

Xander stepped up onto the command dais. "Willow, how long until we're at a dead stop in relation to Sunnydale?"

"About ten seconds." Willow's eyes were on the holoscreen. "And mark. We are stationary in relation to Sunnydale. Current altitude… 823 kilometers. I'll tell Amy it's safe to send Theresa down now."

"Great." He turned to the tactical station, where Buffy sat. "So, what do you got, Buff?"

"Other than us and a metric buttload of space junk, the skies are clear. Nobody's launched anything at us, though some of the signals Dawn picked up aren't radio so much as they are radar. It's a pretty good bet someone down there has us in their sites. We're too far east for China or Russia to ping us, but we're being painted not only from land-based US radars, but from a vessel in the middle of the Pacific."

"Okay, keep an eye out. I don't think anyone has anything they can throw at us, but just… be careful.'

Buffy nodded and turned back to her console. "On it, boss."

Buffy calling him 'boss' caught Xander by surprise for a moment, but he shrugged it off. Sitting in the command chair, he tapped on the interface built into the arm and brought up a holo displaying the ship's status. "Buffy, make sure that the counter-battery missiles are locked down. If we are fired on, I want you to shoot down incoming fire, but no counter-attack against the launch points. We don't want to start a war."

Buffy tapped on her command interface, then nodded. "Aye, Captain. Counter-fire batteries are locked down. I also locked down all missile bays and all the primary offensive weapons. We're on defensive batteries only, just in case."

"Good. Very good." Xander was suddenly at a loss for what to do. 'His people' – and he was still getting used to people he knew and considered friends being his crew – were doing their jobs, and while he had the urge to hover over their shoulders, he knew he shouldn't do that. So he sat there, trying not to fidget.

"Captain," Willow began. The sound of her voice nearly made Xander jump in his seat, though luckily no one else on the bridge noticed. "Now that we're stationary over Sunnydale, we're being painted by additional radar. Hawaii can't touch us anymore, but we're getting pinged by installations in Alaska, Oregon, Colorado, South Dakota, and Montana. Several of those are confirmed missile launch sites."

Xander took a deep breath. "Acknowledged. Commander Summers, keep an eye on them." She only nodded in response.

"Commander Madison to the bridge?" Amy's voice came out of nowhere, being broadcast by the room's sound system.

Xander tapped a control on the arm of his chair. "Bridge. Go."

"Captain, Theresa's safe on the ground. I put her in her own bedroom; figured that was safer than dropping her in the street in the middle of the night. Cordelia and I are now in sick bay."

"Okay, cool. Um… keep up the good work."

The amusement in Amy's voice was tangible. "Right… uh... roger. Madison out."

"Welles… uh… Chief Welles to the bridge." Andrew's voice came over the comm. He sounded on the edge of a geek-out to Xander. "Tucker and I are in damage control. We've activated the service droids, so uh… we'll be able to handle things if there's trouble."

"Okay, thanks, Andrew. Anything else?"

"I guess not. This is so cool!"

"Yeah. Okay, bridge out."

Xander thought about contacting engineering and seeing if Ms. Calendar was all set, but before he could, Jonathan spoke up.

"Captain, I've got the signal untangled. It's uh… its originating from Colorado Springs. The transmitter assembly on top of Cheyenne Mountain." Jonathan spun in his seat, toward the command chair. He had a hand to one ear, where his multi-comm implant was located. Jono's eyes were wide as he listened to something only he could hear. "That's where NORAD is location." The young man listened for a bit. "Okay, this is… wow… I don't… I think what we have here is a message being broadcast in three different languages. The first is just English, but the other two…" He tapped a control, then shook his head. "Unable to translate. Weird. They don't appear in our linguistics database."

"Go ahead and play it on the overhead." Xander nodded.

"Right. Here you go." Jonathan tapped on a couple of buttons.

The unknown voice was male and had a vague southern accent that Xander couldn't quite place. _"… controlled space uninvited. Any hostile acts on your part will be considered a declaration of war and will be met with lethal force. This…" _There was a pause. _"… is a second. You know have 600 of them to transmit your intentions or we will assume hostilities and fire on you. Message Repeats."___

____

____

What followed was another voice speaking in the first unknown language. It also was male, but deeper and with more gravel. When that message was over, a third voice, younger and smoother, spoke in the second unknown language.

Then it began again in English. _"Attention alien vessel. This is Major General George Hammond of Stargate Command on behalf of the Planet Earth. You have entered controlled space uninvited. Any hostile acts on your part will be considered a declaration of war and will be met with lethal force. This…"_ There was the pause again. _"… is a second. You know have 600 of them to transmit your intentions or we will assume hostilities and fire on you. Message Repeats."_

Xander's eyebrows were trying to climb up into his scalp. Buffy and Willow both had confused looks on their faces. Jonathan just looked expectant.

"Huh," Xander said. "You said NORAD?" At Jonathan's nod, Xander just said, "Huh" again. After a thoughtful pause, he asked, "Okay, anyone know what the hell this General Hammond guy means by 'Stargate Command'?"


	2. Introductions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story will not leave me alone. Its building slowly, right now, but I have written notes about future scenes for the entire length of the story, I think, and I keep coming up with more of them. (Usually while I’m in the shower; my nurse is becoming a fan of the story because she’s there when I come up with the new stuff.)

**xxxXXxxx**

_“As the Secretary General of the United Nations, an organization of 147 member states who represent almost all of the human inhabitants of the planet Earth, I send greetings on behalf of the people of our planet.” – Kurt Waldheim, Secretary General of the United Nations, 1977_

**xxxXXxxx**

**In Earth Orbit, 823 km Above Sunnydale, California  
November 1, 1997  
09:14:04 GMT**

“Huh,” Xander said. “You said NORAD?” At Jonathan’s nod, Xander just said, “Huh” again. After a thoughtful pause, he asked, “Okay, anyone know what the hell this General Hammond guy means by ‘Stargate Command’?”

“Well, NORAD is the Air Force, right?” Willow said, not really asking. “So maybe it’s an Air Force Unit that deals with Stargates.”

“Yeah, okay, but isn’t the nearest Tonalse stargate out near Lacaille 8760? Or was it one of the other Tonalse colonies?” Xander asked. The Tonalse were an immensely ancient species with near god-like technology, including the stargates, which would allow starships – but only Tonalse starships – to cross the Galaxy in seconds from one gate to another.

“I think so. In any case, if Earth secretly controlled a stargate, we’d have seen it by now.” Buffy shook her head. “The things are as big around as the moon, for crying out loud.”

“Well, whatever it is, these people expect an answer. We’ve got roughly 8 minutes until their deadline expires.” Jonathan said.

“Right. How long is that in Earth seconds? I loved that part.” Willow interjected. “So courteous of them to introduce us to that thing they call Earth time.”

“Yeah, really. I guess we need to figure out what to say to these people, and we need to do it now.” Xander said. “On the one hand, we don’t want them to think we’re going to attack them from orbit, which is what they’re afraid of, I’m sure. On the other, I don’t think we want them to know that it’s just a bunch of High School kids and their computer teacher up here.”

“And we don’t want to let them get control of this ship,” Buffy added. “That would be a disaster. I mean, think about what the US government would do if they had this sort of firepower. How long do you think it would take for the US to start attacking other countries just to…” she held up her hands and made air quotes. “… keep the peace worldwide.”

“I guess it sounds a little arrogant of us, but at least we’ve been trained as ICS officers to handle the responsibilities of commanding this vessel.” Willow said, finally, agreeing with Buffy. “But I don’t think we’re going to have to worry about them taking the Far Traveler from us. I mean, the security protocols…”

Xander nodded as well, also agreeing. “Yeah. Okay. So that leads us back to what are we going to tell them?”

“We shouldn’t give them our real names.” Buffy said.

“Well, yeah, I can see that. But on the other hand, I’d feel silly calling myself ‘Captain Brock Samson.’ That name is way too over the top.” Xander responded. “At least with your name you can hide behind an alien culture. Or, you know…” he waved vaguely at Willow. “… a different Human culture.”

“You could always be Xander Samson. Or maybe Brock Harris.” Willow shook her head. “Meh, both of those sound kind of weird, too.”

“I think I’m going to use Jonathan Brandenburger. I mean, sure that last name is a mouthful, but it’ll hide my identity.”

Xander thought about it for a minute. “Okay, go ahead and call these guys up. I think I know what I’m going to do. Dawn, I want you to trace the origin point of that signal. Once you know where it came from, I want us to…”

**xxxXXxxx**

**Stargate Program Base, Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado  
November 1, 1997  
09:19:27 GMT**

“Anything?” General Hammond asked.

“Nothing yet, sir.” Chief Master Sergeant Norman Harriman – longtime friends and colleagues knew he preferred to use his middle name, Walter, rather than his first name, which he despised for some unspoken reason – glanced at the clock. Officially – by the duty roster he, himself, had written on behalf of the general as the senior-ranking NCO at SG-1 – he was supposed to have been relieved three hours ago. He’d told his relief to stand down. There was no way he was missing this. “Still have a little over two minutes.”

“Well, let’s hope they get back to us and are friendly. We only have the two Goa’uld-buster missiles, and we don’t even know if they’ll work. I’d hate to waste them.”

“Yes sir.” Harriman nodded, his eyes still on his console.

“Anything yet?” The voice of Colonel O’Neill preceded the man up through the control room door. General Hammond turned to address his XO, but Walter just sighed. Dealing with officers was the burden of every NCO.

“Not yet, Colonel. As I was saying to Walter, here, I was…” the General’s words were cut off by the whooping sound of an alarm. Walter sat up, away from his command console as every light on the board lit. Screens activated and flickered, data and imagery appearing at an amazingly high speed. He could feel the heat as the computer’s CPU immediately overclocked.

And then silence.

“What in hell was that?” Colonel O’Neill demanded, but Walter had no answers.

“I have no idea, sir. It looks like there was a massive power surge but… we seem to be okay now.” All of his control systems were responding normally.

“Were we just hacked? Did the aliens cyber-attack us? Could that have been the cause of the surge?” General Hammond asked, worried about the possible leak of classified material.

“If so, sir, we never saw it coming, and we had no way to stop it.” Walter shook his head. “I can look and see if there was unauthorized access, but it will take me a while. Hunting down that kind of thing isn’t like in the movies where you can just pull up your handy dandy ‘computer invasion detection’ ap.”

“Do what you can, son.” General Hammond ordered. He turned back to O’Neill. “Colonel…”

Once again, he was interrupted, this time by a bright violent light that appeared in the center of the room. It only lasted a moment, but it was enough for Colonel O’Neill to shout “incoming” and cross the room at high speed and tackle the general to the ground.

To tell the truth, Walter ducked and covered too. He just did it under his desk.

After a moment, when there was no Earth-shattering kaboom, he poked his head back out. The Colonel was helping General Hammond to his feet and apologizing. A pair of armed MPs were at the control room’s staircase, weapons drawn, looking for an intruder. Everyone’s attention eventually fell on the new thing floating in mid-air in the middle of the room.

It was a fancy looking disk made of plastic, covered in control surfaces. There was no visible means of supporting it in mid-air but float it nevertheless did. A blinking yellow light next to an inviting blue button was blinking, just fast enough to get everyone’s attention. Floating above the device, in the same mild blue, were holographic letters. Eleven of them, grouped together in a pattern of 4-2-5. The letters were the same almost recognizable script that Doctor Jackson had been crowing about earlier. The middle two letters resembled nothing more than the word “TO” if you didn’t mind your O’s being squared off rectangles.

Speaking of Doctor Jackson… “Jack! Jack! My computer just…. Whoa… now that’s interesting.” The archeologist-cum-linguist skidded to a halt just inside the door. “Okay, what is that?”

“We were just going to figure that out. I think this is the alien’s response.” O’Neill hesitantly took a step toward the device without looking at Jackson. “Daniel, can you make heads or tails out of the letters?”

“Well…” Doctor Jackson approached the thing with no hesitation at all. “These letters look like the same alphabet used on the ship. The ones that looked close to English. So, if that’s true… let’s see.” He paused for a moment. I think the middle word is “to.” That part’s pretty clear. The first word… that first letter is either a P or a really strange D. Next letter is likely a U. As for the third letter… could be an E, an S, or maybe even a… wait… Okay, the first word is “Push.” “Push to.” The third word is probably something like “talk” or “start” or “begin.”

Dr. Jackson looked up and grinned at Jack O’Neill. “They want to talk to us, and for some reason sent this down so they could do it. It’s actually inviting us to push the button and start talking.”

“Yeah, but what if…” O’Neill started.

“What is that?” Captain Carter asked from the doorway. She was accompanied by Teal’c. The gang was all here.

“No clue,” Colonel O’Neill answered. “There was a bright flash, and it appeared in the middle of the room.”

“Probably a communication device.” Daniel said. He was looking the device over pretty closely without touching it.

“When was this?”

“Likely right after all our computers went crazy.” Daniel said, getting closer to the device. “Oh, this is interesting, there appears to be a keyboard along one rim. Alphabet is the same as those letters.” He pointed. “And this… huh. Really? Okay… there’s a black button on this other side which has a pictogram next to it.” Impulsively Daniel punched the button with a forefinger, then lunged to catch the disk as it abruptly stopped hovering.

“Let me guess,” O’Neil said acerbically. “You found the off switch.”

“Uh.” The disk was dark. No lights anywhere, and the letters had disappeared. “Possibly.”

Colonel O’Neill sighed. Walter understood the colonel’s feelings, as sometimes civilians were harder to deal with than officers. The colonel held his hand out, and when Daniel stared at it blankly, the colonel made a motion with his hand that could only be interpreted as ‘give it here.’

Doctor Jackson handed the alien object to the colonel, who immediately began examining it. “Hey Carter?” he finally said. “Come look at this. Its fancy and all, and has that funky alien writing on it, but for all the world this looks like one of those doohickeys you see sitting on the middle of the table at a corporate meeting.”

“What does ‘doohickey’ mean, ColonelO’Neil?” Teal’c asked.

O’Neill looked over at Teal’c while simultaneously handing the device over to Carter. “You know… doohickey. Thingamabob. Doodad.”

Teal’c was silent for a moment. Finally, “Ah. I see. This object is a whatchamacallit.”

“Exactly.” O’Neill nodded.

“I think you’re right, sir.” Carter said, still examining the object. “From what I can tell – and granted I don’t know what its insides look like -- this thing is just a fancy, alien version of a standard conference call speaker. There are directions right on the casing, and it’s in pictograms. ‘Push here to turn it on and off,’ ‘push here to increase the volume.” Carter looked up from her examination of the device. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say this was designed to be handed out to lower-tech civilizations as a diplomatic tool. I bet it even acts as a translation device, once there’s enough linguistic input.”

General Hammond nodded at the information. “All right. Let’s get this into the conference room and see if we can’t get it turned back on. Walter,” the general directly addressed his senior NCO. “Do what you can to find out what that power surge was.”

**xxxXXxxx**

**Stargate Program Base, Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado  
November 1, 1997  
09:26:48 GMT**

The object sat in the middle of the conference table, and SG-1 – along with their commanding general – crowded around it.

“Okay.” Samantha Carter said, leaning over the thing. “Here we go.” And with that, she pressed down on what they were presuming to be the power button. Once again, the disk lit up, with the holographic letters appearing above, and the blinking light on the body. The disk rose from the tabletop to float maybe a foot, perhaps a foot and a half in the air.

Carter shook her head in amazement. She’d seen a lot of high technology in her time at SG-1, but this was something else. For a gadget that was smaller than an average hors d’oeuvres plate, the object seemed to have a ton of functionality. It levitated, projected holographic images, there was the keyboard, an obvious microphone grid which meant there was probably a transmitter… she suspected it was also a translator, which implied a microcomputer. The miniaturization on the device fascinated her, and she’d love to crack open its case to see what it was made of. Now, however, was not the time.

“Daniel, are you sure that says ‘push to begin’?” O’Neill asked.

“Well, I can’t be 100% sure, naturally, but… yeah…”

The colonel nodded. “Go ahead, Carter.”

“Right.” Carter pushed the ‘to begin’ button. She was mildly surprised by the fact that the pressure she exerted on the button didn’t cause the floating disk to shift or bob in the air at all. Whatever was keeping this thing afloat wasn’t hampered by having its controls manipulated.

Immediately after the button was pushed, the floating letters disappeared. A globe of light blue light expanded out from the body of the disk that eventually formed into… a person. Or at least the holographic projection of a person. The figure was in color, and seemed somehow shrunken, as if the projection wasn’t Lifesize. The man – the figure was male – was extraordinarily broad, and from what she could tell he was heavily muscled, almost to the point you’d see on professional bodybuilders.

“Hello.” The holographic man said. He looked around, taking in the entire room – Carter added ‘cameras’ to her tally of functions the device was capable of. The man nodded at each person in the room before he stopped at General Hammond. “You would be Major General Hammond. Very nice to meet you. I am Captain Xander Samson, in command of the ICS Far Traveler. On behalf of the Interstellar Coalition of Sentients, I greet you in peace.” To Carter’s ears, the greeting sounded practiced, as if it was a standard set of words used in such situations. “I must say, though, general, that I do not appreciate having my ship and crew threatened.

It took Carter a moment to realize that while everyone in the conference room was hearing English, the movement of the man’s mouth didn’t quite match. It was like watching one of those badly dubbed kung fu movies from the 70s. Translator confirmed, she thought to herself.

“Yes, I’m General Hammond.” The general began. “As for the threats… Captain, I know this is blunt, but your sudden appearance in our skies has caused some panic down here. Your ship presents a tangible threat to this planet and its people. There are some people in authority who just wanted me to shoot you down no questions asked. I was able to talk them down to just giving you a warning. I appreciate that you say you greet us in peace, but… I have to ask – just what are your intentions?”

The man in the hologram – Captain Samson – looked down at himself for a moment, then did a doubletake. “Ah… you placed it on a table. Right.” The man stepped forward and the device mimicked his movement. The second the disk wasn’t over the table anymore, the rest of the man’s body appeared, placing the disk in the same general location as the man’s heart. “That’s better.” Fully formed, the man’s image was perhaps five and a half feet in height, but as previously noted he was close to three feet across at the shoulder and looked like he could kick a car door off its hinges.

Captain Samson returned his gaze to the general, then seemed to gather himself for a moment. “I’m sorry for any chaos or worry our appearance caused. Believe me, we aren’t here on purpose. This was all the result of a very strange accident. We… uh… well, the best way to explain it is that our FTL-engine malfunctioned. There was an anomalous event with our jump drive, and before we knew what was going on, we found ourselves about to crash into your planet. Trust me, we had our own panicked moments up here, too, before we were able to stabilize our orbit.”

Hammond nodded, then said, “In that case, I apologize for the appearance of hostility. I’m afraid that most of our interactions with other alien species has been hostile. It has made us a bit paranoid.”

“If all you’ve had is hostile contacts, I suppose you can be forgiven for being defensive.” Captain Samson smiled. “So, no harm, no foul. We’ve stabilized ourselves, and we absolutely have no intention of attacking anyone. Mostly, we’re trying to recover from the accident.”

The general still looked non-plussed. “The fact that you’ve stabilized yourself is part of the problem. You see, knowledge of our interaction with alien species is a closely held secret on this world – in fact, knowledge that alien life exists at all is a closely held secret. We need you to move to a higher orbit where you’re not easily visible.” The general said.

Captain Samson gave the general a gimlet eye. “You are in contact with other aliens and you haven’t told your own populace?” Xander knew the answer already, but he wanted to see where this went. “So… what… only the heads of the other governments know?”

There was an awkward silence and no one but the general met the starship captain’s eye. The general’s lips went thin, and he seemed to be forcibly avoiding offering any answer to the question.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me. You’re telling me that you haven’t even told other countries that there are aliens and that you’re doing business with them. You’re telling me no one else on Earth knows but you and the US government?” Samson rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Wow. Well… this complicates things a bit.”

“Wait… you’re aware that this is Earth?” Daniel asked. It was a good question.

Xander stared, thrown off balance by the out-of-nowhere question. “Of course… um…” Captain Samson stopped, obviously giving Daniel a cue.

“I’m Doctor Daniel Jackson.” Daniel nodded.

“Nice to meet you, Doctor Jackson.” Captain Samson smiled. “To answer your question, yes, we recognize the Earth. Why do you ask?”

“Most of the aliens we’ve met… even the human cultures from other planets… have no idea Earth even exists, much less are capable of recognizing it from orbit.” Daniel responded.

“Really? Weird.” Captain Samson ran a hand through his hair. “Well, there’s a very simple explanation. Terra… Earth, that is… is one of the founding worlds of the Interstellar Coalition of Sentients. Or rather, it will be. You see, we’re from your future.”

Everyone in the room was caught flat-footed by that announcement. Samantha herself was shocked, but after a moment’s consideration she had to nod. It made all sorts of sense.

“Captain, if what you say is true…” the general began, but before he could continue there was a beeping noise from the device.

Captain Samson’s hologram became motionless, and a woman’s recorded voice said, “Communications interrupted. We are sorry for the inconvenience. Please hold.”

O’Neill laughed. “I love it. Spacemen from the future, and they put us on hold.”

“Why do you think?” Daniel asked. “Is there something going on in orbit?”

“Who knows?” O’Neill said. “Maybe he told us something he shouldn’t have.”

There was another beep and the holographic figure began moving again. “Sorry about that,” Samson said.

**xxxXXxxx**

**In Earth Orbit, 823 km Above Sunnydale, California  
November 1, 1997  
09:30:40 GMT**

“Xander! Are you out of your cotton-picking mind, telling them something like that?” Willow demanded at the top of her lungs.

“Wils, what’s the problem?” Xander asked, bemused.

“Time travel? The entire jump drive accident thing, okay, but time travel!?! Have you lost it completely?” Willow demanded again. “You told them we’re from the future?”

“Sure, why not? Can you think of a better explanation of how we’re here in an advanced starship, with technology these people never even dreamed about, and yet also know so much about Earth?” Xander chuckled and shrugged in bemusement at Willow’s outrage.

“Well…” Willow began. But that was all she said.

“Um… not that anyone asked,” Jonathan said. “But I think it’s a brilliant cover story. It pretty much works on all levels. Especially since according to the ship’s internal calendar, the current year is 3224 anyway.”

Everyone looked to Buffy for her opinion. “What? Doesn’t matter to me. I was never into science fiction all that much anyway.”

Willow sat there, silent, before huffing. “Fine. Just… be careful. Keep your story straight, Xander.”

“I will, don’t worry.” Xander nodded. “Now… let’s resume communication, okay?” Willow nodded and pressed a control on her console. Xander was immediately surrounded by images of the SG-1’s conference room. “Sorry about that…”

**xxxXXxxx**

**Stargate Program Base, Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado  
November 1, 1997  
09:26:48 GMT**

There was another beep and the holographic figure began moving again. “Sorry about that,” samson said. “My XO was reminding me about the potential hazards of revealing what would be -- for you -- future knowledge. Altering the timeline and all that. She’s understandably worried that we’ll screw something up here in the past and prevent the ICS from ever forming.”

“And that would be a bad thing, I’m guessing.” O’Neill said.

“Well… yes, it would be. The Coalition has kept the peace in Known space for 300 years.” Captain Samson shrugged. “Besides, you’re Americans, right? Wouldn’t you want to make sure that Thomas Jefferson finished the US Constitution on time?”

“Uh… James Madison wrote the US Constitution, not Thomas Jefferson.” Daniel replied.

“Really? Huh.” Samson shrugged again. “Well… you know, not my planet’s history, and history was never really my favorite subject. I’m sure you know what I mean, though.”

“So…” O’Neill said with that slight slowness to his voice that his team recognized as being the lead-in to a hard-hitting question. “You’re from a different planet and from the future?”

“Certainly. In my time, humanity has spread out among the stars and has colonized multiple worlds. I mean, human space is literally called ‘the Hundred Worlds.’ There’s actually more than a hundred but saying ‘the Hundred and Sixty-Three Worlds just doesn’t have the same ring to it.” Samson smiled. Carter got the feeling he smiled a lot. Most of what he said seemed to be on the edge of a joke, or at least tinged with some unknown source of humor.

“If I may ask,” Teal’c said. “You mentioned being from the future. From how many years did you come to this time?”

“Well, its… what… late 1997 according to your calendar? That would mean we were thrown some twelve hundred, twenty-seven years back into the past. Where we are from, its day 184 of Common Year 329, dated from the founding of the Coalition.” Samson turned, and seemed to be silently consulting with someone that SG-1 couldn’t see. “According to my operations officer, according to your calendar that would be… uh… July 3, 3224.”

“Its October here.” Daniel said. “Wait, no… its after midnight, so its November. November first. I’d love to find out how closely your calendar matches…”

The general cleared his throat, and Daniel fell silent. “While I’m sure we look forward to exchanging whatever knowledge you wish to give us later on, I still need to know just what your intentions are now that you are here in Earth orbit, Captain Samson.”

“Well general, that’s a harder question than you know.” Samson once again ran a hand through his hair. “You see, we’re drastically undermanned and operating on emergency protocols. The… event, let’s call… cause massive casualties among my crew.”

The alien captain heaved a great sigh and continued. “We have no idea how to recreate the circumstances that brought us here – and given that it wiped out so many of my crew, I’m not sure I’d want to. Nor is there any guarantee that were we to replicate it, we’d land back in our own time. For all we know, we could end up even further in the past, or perhaps in a far off year that would be not only the future for you, but for us as well.”

“How many did you lose?” O’Neill asked. The question caused both Daniel Jackson and the general to wince, but neither said anything.

“Over 99.9% of my crew vanished when the event happened.” Captain Samson was silent for a long while, before he quietly muttered, “Nearly ten thousand people, almost the entire crew of the Far Traveler, gone. They were here one moment, gone the next. There’s less than twenty of us left. Without only a skeleton crew, my options are limited. It looks like there’s no way we can get home. We’re all going to grow old and die here.”

The room went deathly silent as the Stargate personnel tried to process what they were hearing. No one in the conference room could see tears, but nevertheless Captain Samson’s holographic form wiped at his face with a hand.

“My god…” General Hammond finally said, his voice heavy. “Less than twenty out of a crew of almost ten thousand?” He looked to his team, and every one of them was just as shocked as he was. O’Neill was thumping his fist on the table, over and over again, his eyes closed. Carter’s mouth was hanging open and her eyes were wide and watery. Daniel Jackson looked like he was about to vomit. Teal’c looked unaffected to anyone who didn’t know him, but there was a tell-tale tightening around the Jaffa’s eyes that gave away that he, too, was being hard-hit by the news.

“Captain…” the general began, then paused. This Far Traveler might have been an alien starship, but right now it was an alien starship in serious distress. American law was quite clear on how to respond in that case. Hammond stared into space for a moment, then cleared his throat. “Captain, in accordance with Article 12 of the Second Geneva Convention and the laws of the United States of America, I’d like to extend any and all possible assistance I can to you in this time of distress. Is there anything we can do to render assistance?”

The starship captain was silent for a long moment. “General, let me consult with my crew about our immediate needs. I’ll contact you again in… say… 7200 seconds.” The general nodded in response, two which Captain Samson said, “We’ll be in touch. Samson out.”

The hologram winked out and the conference room was quiet.

Eventually O’Neill spoke up. “So… anyone doubt what he was saying?”

“You think he was lying, Jack?” Daniel asked, incredulous.

“No. No, I don’t. Did you see the look on his face? No, that’s the look of a commander who has lost most of his command and there was nothing he could have done about it. I just… I’ve seen some operations go south pretty badly. But there haven’t been any cases of near 100% casualties since World War II. It’s a bit of a shock.”

“All right, people.” General Hammond said. “I want us to figure out just what kind of aid we can render and how much of it. I’m going to call the president and explain what’s going on to him.”

“He won’t give you any trouble for volunteering aid, will he sir?” Carter asked.

“No. As I mentioned, I’m following US law which requires all aid and assistance be rendered to mariners in distress.” Hammond gave a shallow, dark grin. “Now, granted those laws were originally written for sailors on the ocean whose ships sink, or who are shipwrecked, but I think the principle applies here.”

“7200 seconds?” Daniel asked out of the blue.

“Two hours, Danny. He’s calling us back in two hours. 60 seconds per minute times 60 minutes per hour times 2 for two hours.” O’Neill said. He turned to the general. “It occurs to me that a warship from a thousand years in the future would be an amazing asset in our war against the Goa’uld, sir.”

Hammond nodded. “It would, yes. I suspect there are going to be those who will bring pressure for us to simply seize the… Far Traveler, was it? Someone in Washington will think that since most of the crew is gone, and since these are aliens we’re talking about, we can just take the thing over. Something tells me that trying it would be a fool’s game, colonel.”

“If there’s one thing that Star Trek has taught us it’s those sorts of ships have automated internal defenses.” Everyone rolled their eyes at O’Neill’s comment. Trust the colonel to make a Star Trek reference.

“Did anyone else notice that Captain Samson’s mouth wasn’t matching his voice?” Daniel asked. “We were hearing English, but he wasn’t speaking it.”

“That was one of the first things I noticed, Daniel.” Carter said. “There’s likely a translator function in the communicator plate.”

“That’s neat,” O’Neill said. “I can think of ways we could use that technology, if they can teach us to make it.”

General Hammond nodded. “I’m sure they have many examples of technology we could use. The question is, will they share it.”

“If they’re anything like every other race we’ve ever met, they’re not going to just hand over the big honking space guns,” O’Neill said. “But medical advances, communications technology, material science…”

“Even if all we did was take them up on their offer to be a lifting body for us, it would revolutionize the space program,” Carter said.

Teal’c nodded, then added, “It may be that even if they are unwilling to hand over weapons technology, they might be willing to part with more defensive knowledge. Knowing how to make your own shield generators would be a great boon to the Tau’ri.”

Daniel seemed to be talking to himself. Everyone else was talking about one thing, and he was talking about another. It was something he did sometimes when he was thinking. “Twelve hundred years between then and now. Linguistic drift is a constant thing. I mean, look at how different the English language today is from what it was only a hundred years ago. Given a thousand years? Who knows what the English language would be like over that length of time; just look at the differences between the language circa the year 1000 and now! It’s fascinating. I’d love to see what they know about the evolution of languages.”

“One thing at a time, Doctor Jackson.” General Hammond nodded, understanding the linguist’s interests. He addressed the whole team. “Speculating about the technology they might be willing to share with us can wait. Right now, we need to focus on what they might need to just survive right now. So…” the general paused and took in his team. “Two hours.” The general nodded again. He stood, and everyone else in the room stood with him, including Doctor Jackson this time. “Dismissed, people. I need to make a phone call. See to marshalling what resources we have that they might find useful. At the very least, maybe we can lend them a few strong backs for lifting and carrying.”

**xxxXXxxx**

**In Earth Orbit, 823 km Above Sunnydale, California  
November 1, 1997  
09:47:02 GMT**

The lights of the holocom system went out and Xander turned to the others on the bridge. “And the Oscar goes to…”

“That was pretty brilliant, Xander.” Willow sighed, always the worrier. “Now we just have to remember to keep the story straight.”

“Won’t be that hard. The best part about the story I gave them is that it’s all true.” Jonathan said. “An anomalous event did cause us to be here. This ship is from the far future. From what Dawn says, she had a full crew until whatever it was that turned us into our costumes ended and they just blipped out leaving all of us behind.”

“So, what are we going to ask them for – you know, the assistance they are offering?” Buffy asked.

“That’s a good question.” Xander took a deep breath and blew it out rapidly, momentarily puffing his cheeks out. “We’re good for food – our biomatter reserves can keep the replicators supplied for decades, given that there’s only like one thousandth of the crew complement on board. Repairs can be handled by the service drones, and we can manufacture any spare parts we need. Heck, we probably could build a whole shuttle with the material resources we have.”

“And if we need more, we can hit the asteroid belt. Feed a couple of rocks into the converter and boom, we’ll have all the minerals we need.” Jonathan added.

“Our medical technology is much better than theirs. And besides, no one’s hurt.” Willow said.

Buffy nodded. “Replicators can make us clothing, and we’re in the ultimate shelter. So just what do we need from them?”

Xander was silent. He shrugged, not knowing how to answer.

“How about legal identities. I mean, for our new personas?” Willow said. “I mean, if we’re going to be like this forever, I don’t want to be constantly explaining why I’m no longer a 5’5” tall redhead from California, you know?”

“Yeah. I mean, I don’t think anyone’s going to be accepting my driver’s license as proper ID anymore.” Buffy said, waving a hand over her body. Her eyes widened suddenly. “Oh shit… do I even have rights anymore? Does the Bill of Rights apply to non-humans?”

“Yes, you do. As I recall from my History of Law class, the Bill of Rights spoke of the rights of ‘people’ not ‘human beings.” Xander said, the knowledge bubbling up from his new memories. “The ICS considers the Bill of Rights to be one of the first steps forward in recognizing the rights possessed of all sentient beings regardless of species. So, you’re fine.”

“Okay. That’s good.” Buffy was quiet for a moment. “Other than the new identities, and maybe a place to take a vacation safely, we don’t really need anything that the Earth can provide, you know?”

“Oh no. Nope. Uh-huh.” Xander said. “Have you seen the replicator’s selection of junk food? I have a plan to beam down to a Quik-E-Mart and load up on unhealthy snackage and feed it into the replicator’s intake. Probably do the same thing with the Double-Triple from the Double Meat Palace and the Chicken Mega Quesadilla from Jose Fuego’s.”

“The triple peanut butter malted from Icy-Treat.” Jonathan said, staring into space.

Xander grinned and pointed at Jono in the universal ‘got that right’ gesture. “Exactly.”

“Well, before we go on the snack run, I need to call my mom. She’s probably worried sick.” Buffy said. “Dawn, can you hook into the telephone system in the town below us?”

“Dawn, belay that.” At Buffy’s confused look, Xander continued. “It’s got to be close to 3 am down there. Your mom is probably asleep right now.”

“No, I told her that we’d be done escorting the kids by 8 at the latest. I told her we might go hang at the Bronze after, but even then, I’d normally be back home by 11:30 or so. So, if its 3 am I know she’s down there worrying about me.”

“Oh. Okay.” Xander looked sheepish. “In that case, Dawn, can you get into the telephone system down there?”

“Easily, Captain.” Dawn said. “Whom did you wish to contact, Commander Summer?”

“My mother. Here’s the number. I’ll take it at the communications console.” Buffy rattled off the ten-digit phone number for the house on Revello Drive, sitting down at the appropriate console. She put the earpiece off its hook and put it on, then tapped a control.

“So, anyone else want to make a phone call before we talk to the General and his people again?”

“Maybe we should contact Giles. Let him know what’s going on.” Willow suggested.

“Mister Giles the Librarian? That Mister Giles?” At their nods, Jonathan got a confused look on his face. “Why would you need to call him at…” he checked something on his console. “Ten till 3 in the morning? Do you have some books that are really overdue or something?”

“Jonathan…” Xander began, wondering how much he should say. “You’re aware that something weird is going on in Sunnydale, right?”

“Yeah.” Jono nodded, glumly. “There’s definitely something dark and spooky going on. All those people disappearing or dying mysteriously.”

“Well… let’s just say that we – along with Buffy and Mr. Giles and Ms. Calendar – are trying to do something about it.”

“Yeah!” Willow said, brightening up. “You see Buffy’s the Slayer, which means it’s her job to stop the monsters and the demons and the vampires. We’re like… the Slayerettes. We assist the Slayer and give her backup.”

“The Slayer. Vampires, demons, and monsters.” Jonathan said. “Are you kidding me about this?”

“Jonathan, you got turned into your Halloween costume and now have the memories of Dack Brandenburger in your head. Not to mention you’re standing on the bridge of a starship from a thousand years in the future. And you’re going to get picky about vampires and demons?” Xander chuckled and shook his head. “Wow.”

“Uh, yeah… I guess that does sound stupid.” Jonathan admitted. He was quiet for a moment. “I guess vampires would explain a lot of things happening in town…”

“There’s something else to consider here, Xander.” Willow said, worried. “From a certain point of view, this ship is nothing more than a flying weapon of mass destruction. There’s no way this General guy is not going to contact his superiors. Sooner or later, someone, somewhere, is going to want to take this ship and turn it into a big stick for US policy.”

She looked at the other two. “Think about it. Can you imagine how quickly someone at the helm of this ship could conquer the entire earth? I mean, we’re not going to go blowing up the world because we’ve got ICS ideals and morality in our heads. We take a larger view. We tend to think on an interstellar level, or on the planetary level, not on the local.”

Xander nodded. “Yeah, we’ll make sure they understand that we’re not here to enforce some politician’s plan for world supremacy.”

“What if they make it a condition of assisting us?” Jonathan asked.

“We refuse.” Willow said. “We outright refuse. We can offer them other things in exchange for their help. Like medical technology, or better communications gear. Giving them tech that we’d consider cutting edge would be useless since there’s no way that they could build more with their current tech base. But we could give them examples of new tech from… say… the 2010s or the 2020s.”

“We can also advance their materials science by decades. We could give them advanced formulas for new plastics, new metallic alloys… I think there’s even a room-temperature superconductor we could give them.” Jonathan added.

“Yeah. And heck, even if all we offered them was our surface-to-orbit lift capacity it would be a boon. Using our capabilities, we could put a satellite in orbit in minutes.” Xander nodded. “With our help, they could get a Mars colony set up by the end of next year.”

“Okay guys,” Buffy said, turning back to the group. “I… uh… talked to my mom. She’s really mad that I didn’t make it home. I tried to explain what was going on, but… uh… she wants me home. Now. I’m going to have to go down there to explain to her what’s going on.”

**xxxXXxxx**

**1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale, California  
November 1, 1997  
09:51:34 GMT**

Joyce Summers jolted awake. She’d been sitting on the couch, waiting for Buffy to come home. There was no reason why Buffy needed to be out past midnight, and the last time Joyce checked the clock, it was 2 am. It had been a long day, though, and she had nodded off.

She looked around, trying to figure out what woke her, but seeing nothing…. And then Joyce nearly jumped out of her skin when the phone rang. She huffed a couple of times, realizing that this must be what woke her up.

Joyce lunged at the phone. “Buffy?”

“Yeah, mom, it’s me. I… uh…”

“Where are you, young lady?” Joyce asked, angrily. “You should have been home hours ago!”

“Yeah, mom, I know… I just… something happened. Something bad. I… uh… I’m okay, mostly, but there’s been… something… just something happened.”

“What? What happened? Are you okay? Are you hurt?” Joyce asked. For a moment, her anger turned to fight. “Do you need a doctor?”

“No, mom… I’m… there’s actually a doctor here. I just… I’m not in danger or anything, and I’m not hurt. Its just something happened.’

“Fine. Okay, you say something happened but you’re okay. Is anyone else hurt? Xander? Willow?” Joyce asked, increasingly worried.

“No, mom… everyone’s fine. It’s just… something weird happened.”

“If you’re okay, come home.”

“That’s not going to be that…”

“I want you home right now, young lady.” Joyce was firm, tamping down on her anger. “Don’t backtalk me right now. You don’t call me three hours after your curfew and tell me something happened, then tell me you can’t come home.”

“Mom, I… I’m not… look, I’m not exactly in Sunnydale right now. I’ll be home as soon as I can, and I’ll explain what happened. I need to talk to you about… well, about a lot of things. I’ll call back later, mom. Bye.”

“Wait, Buffy! Don’t…” but a dial tone was all she heard. “Damn it.” Joyce looked at the phone receiver for a moment, then hung up.

She walked into the kitchen and started a pot of coffee. She doubted she’d get any sleep tonight.”

**xxxXXxxx**

**In Earth Orbit, 823 km Above Sunnydale, California  
November 1, 1997  
09:53:38 GMT**

“Okay guys,” Buffy said, turning back to the group. “I… uh… talked to my mom. She’s really mad that I didn’t make it home. I tried to explain what was going on, but… uh… she wants me home. Now. I’m going to have to go down there to explain to her what’s going on.”

“Oh, Buffy… that’s going to be horrible. I mean, how are we going to explain all this to her?” Willow stood and patted her friend on the back. “Do you want us to go with you? We can offer backup, not to mention some additional evidence.” She motioned towards Xander.

“Yeah. You guys can help back up my story.”

“Sure, Buffster. We can do that.” Xander turned to Jonathan. “Jono, how much longer do we have until our next scheduled communication with the General?”

“Uh…” Jonathan checked something on his console. “I read it as one hour, fifty four minutes remaining.

“Plenty of time, hopefully. And if not, I’ll come back up here, and you and Willow can keep talking to your mom.”

“What about Giles? Should I call him? Ask him to meet us at my house?” Buffy asked.

“Might be a good idea. You were planning on calling Giles eventually, anyway. Might as well get it over with.” Willow said, nodding.

Xander looked to Jonathan. “You’ll be in command while we’re ashore.”

“Got it,” the other man just nodded.

“Okay, Buffy, call Giles, and then we’ll beam down to your house.” Willow patted Buffy on the back again. “You’ll be fine. Your mom will understand. I mean, once everything is explained to her. You know? She’s cool like that.”

That raised a snort from Buffy. “You didn’t know her before I got here. The first time I tried to tell her and my dad about the Slayer gig, they threw me…” Buffy abruptly went silent. “Never mind. Let’s just say she’s not always as accepting and understanding as she seems.”

“We’ll be there for you, Buff.” Xander said. “Go call Giles.”

**xxxXXxxx**

**1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale, California  
** November 1, 1997  
10:02:30 GMT

When she heard the knock at the door, Joyce Summers first instinct was to call out for Buffy, but she immediately realized how ridiculous that was. The door wasn’t locked. Buffy would just walk into the house. Joyce glanced at the clock. A couple of minutes after 3 am. Who in the blazes could be knocking on my door at this hour? she thought to herself.

Joyce made sure the chain was in place before opening the door just a crack. A tall man with glasses, wearing a tweed jacket over a white t-shirt and a pair of blue jeans smiled at her from the other side of the door.

“Mrs. Summers?” the man asked.

“Yes?” Joyce was perhaps a bit more abrupt than she meant to be, but it was three in the morning for crying out loud.

“Ah, yes, I, uh, apologize for the late hour. My name’s Rupert Giles. Your daughter, Buffy, asked me to come over as quickly as I could. She said she had something to tell the both of us.”

Rupert Giles? Where had she heard that… oh, right. “You’re the librarian. At the High School.”

“Yes, that’s right,” the man nodded.

“Why would Buffy call you? And at this hour?” Joyce demanded.

Mr. Giles opened his mouth to speak but stopped abruptly. There was a bright, sinking glow that lit up the inside of the door, the wall next to it… everything. It was clear something strange had just happened behind her.

Joyce spun, inadvertently slamming the front door of the house closed. Her eyes widened as she took in the three figures. Two women and a man. The man was stubby and short. He had a head of closely trimmed black hair and had so many muscles on top of his muscles that it looked like he’d swallowed Arnold Schwarzeneggar whole, and followed him up with Lou Ferigno for dessert. The two women were just as strange. The first was tall – very tall – and pale with white skin and hair. 

The second was… weird. A monster, almost. She was slightly taller than she was, with a golden cascade of hair cut in a long, flowing mohawk down the center of her back. Her skin was a golden tan for the most part, and there were black spots all over the woman’s exposed skin. And…

It took Joyce a moment to finish that thought. The woman seemed to have four breasts. Stacked in two rows of two.

“Mom,” the weird, four-breasted spotted woman said in Buffy’s voice. “If that’s Giles, let him in. We need to talk about what happened tonight and we don’t have a lot of time.”

The first thing that registered was that the woman’s canines were longer than normal. Not to the point of fangs, but definitely more pronounced. And then the real shock registered: Buffy’s voice was coming out of the strange woman’s mouth. It was suddenly too much. Joyce felt a sort of falling rush, a physical sensation not unlike the plunge you feel after cresting the peak of a tall roller-coaster. Everything went dark.

Joyce opened her eyes, wondering what just happened. She was lying on her couch, suddenly, with the weird-looking monster woman was leaning over her, holding her hand. The librarian, Mr. Giles, was standing nearby with the squashed-looking man and the pale giantess.

“Mom?” The woman said. “Oh, thank God you’re okay. You scared me when you fainted like that.”

Joyce stared at the woman, now that she was closer; her eyes were milk white with only a pupil and no iris. The spots were a regular pattern in the skin, not painted on. And the woman did nearly have fangs. But it was Buffy’s voice…

“Buffy?” Now that Joyce was close, she could see her daughter in this person. The shape of her face, the curve of her eyebrow, her nose, her chin… “Buffy… how… what… I don’t... don’t understand!?!”

“Yeah, mom. I know. Its weird. I… uh, well, I did say something happened.”

Joyce sat up, slowly, with Buffy’s help. She looked at the other two strange-looking people, realizing that if this was Buffy, the other two must be… “Willow? Xander?”

“Hey there, Mrs. S!” the man said as he approached. He knelt down next to the couch and Joyce could clearly see it was Xander. Just… changed. “It’s us all right. It’s still us.”

Joyce looked to the tall woman. With the differences in coloration, and the height – not to mention the natural elongation that the height gave – it was hard to recognize her, but there were definitely remnants of Willow there.

Joyce carefully reached up to Buffy’s face and ran her thumb over a row of spots. She could feel a field of short, thick hairs – almost fur – covering Buffy’s face. The spot only shifted when her daughter’s skin did. The spot was really, really there. The… again, Joyce hesitated to call it ‘fur’… was really there. She once again looked toward Xander and Willow, then faced her daughter again.

“What happened? Why did you turn into… that?” Joyce asked.

“I asked them that earlier, but they told me I had to wait until you were conscious.” Giles said.

“We don’t have a lot of time to keep rehashing the story.” Xander said. “We’re not really sure, but we think someone cast a spell on the town to turn everyone into their Halloween costume.”

“What?” Joyce asked. “Spell?”

But no one was paying attention. Giles said, “That would be horridly dangerous, given the proclivities of some people and their choices of costume.” The older man was silent for a moment. “How do you know?”

“Well, we don’t. Not really.” Willow said. “Its just there were nine of us affected like this, and the only common thread any of us found were we all rented these costumes…” she gestured to the uniform she was wearing. “… from the same shop. We were all doing different things – escorting the kids, going to parties, and so on – but we were all wearing the same sort of costume. Only Cordelia was unaffected. If our guess about the costumes is correct, it’s because she got hers from Party City while we got ours from this new place called ‘Ethan’s.”

“Ethan’s?” Giles asked. “We’ll have to look into it. Do you know how the spell was ended?”

Xander shook his head. “No clue. We all just woke up in orbit on a spaceship.”

“Wait…” Joyce found her voice, overriding the conversation going on in front of her. “You woke up on a… a spaceship?” She was feeling faint again. “Hold on. You said it was a spell. A magic spell? You mean like a magic spell? Like a real life ‘hocus pocus, alakazam’ magic spell?”

“Yeah, mom. Just like that. A real life hocus-pocus spell.” Buffy sat on the couch, carefully to give her mother maximum room. “Its all real. Magic is real. Spells, witches, curses. It’s all real.”

“Not to mention the demons and the vampires.” Willow added.

“What… vampires?” Joyce’s eyes went wide, and she stared in open horror at her daughter. “Vampires, like when you burned down the…”

“Yeah, mom. Like when I burned down the gym.”

“Buffy, that’s ridiculous! Vampires? You were having problems. You suffered a mental breakdown and were hallucinating.”

“Right, I was hallucinating.” Buffy rolled her eyes. “Just like I’m hallucinating having fur and fangs and spots, right? Just like how Willow is hallucinating being a seven-foot-tall albino.”

“Buffy, you…” Joyce began, but Buffy overrode her.

“No, mom. I need you to listen. I am the Slayer, the one girl in all the world who has the strength and skill to fight the vampires. It’s a thing.” She gestured toward the librarian. “Mister Giles is my Watcher; he trains me to fight. My old Watcher, Merrick, got killed defending me. Its all real. Monsters, magic, spells, ghosts, and ghoulies. All real. And now someone has turned me into this as part of a Halloween prank, apparently.”

“But… how can this all be real?” Joyce asked, still not wanting to accept it. But – still holding Buffy’s hand – she pushed a finger up and down the back of Buffy’s, still feeling the fur that was now present on her daughter’s body. It was real. It was completely real.

“Oh, God… and we threw you in that place when we thought you were…” Joyce was horrified. “Buddy, darling, I am so, so…”

“Don’t, mom. Its okay. Just… we have other fish to fry right now.” Buffy nodded, acknowledging Joyce’s attempt at an apology, but clearly not accepting it.

“Why? What else is going on?” Mr. Giles asked.

“Well… uh… Xander, you explain.” Buffy turned to Xander.

“Right.” Xander stepped forward and assumed some kind of stance with his arms tucked behind his back. Joyce had seen solders stand this way in military movies. She forgot what the stance was called, but… Xander was talking.

“Changed as we are, there’s no way the three of us can live normal lives now. Whatever magic did this, we three figure its likely going to be permanent. In addition, we have a mile-long, heavily armed starship in orbit that we and the others are in control.”

“I don’t think children are the right people to be put in charge of such a thing, do you?” Mr. Giles asked.

“Maybe, maybe not. First of all, everyone involved is no longer a teenager, at least physically. Sure, chronologically I’m still 16,” Xander said. “Physically, I’m closer to 30, and mentally I’m even more mature. The character I was playing – the character I turned into – was a double doctorate. I’m as adult as they come right now. But anyway, it’s all moot.”

“But you’re still teenagers! The fact that you look older doesn’t mean you are. You need to hand over this… this ship of yours to someone who can use it responsibly.” Joyce asked. “I mean…”

“One moment, Mrs. Summers.” Giles interrupted. “Xander, what do you mean when you say that whether you’re the right people is moot?”

Xander nodded and shrugged. “Well, what you have to understand is that the ship is controlled by an artificial intelligence. Her name is Dawn. Dawn’s programming isn’t going to allow her to just let anybody who walks into the bridge and says that are in control be in control. Dawn recognizes me as its captain and them” – he pointed to the two girls – “as my command crew, along with the others. So, we’re in command whether you want us to be or not.”

“But… what about your lives here?” Joyce was grasping for some remnant of their normal life at this point.

“Mom look at me. Do you really think I can just pretend to be a normal high school student anymore?” Buffy sighed. “Look, mom… I know you just want what’s best for me, and I love you for that. But I need you to face facts, here, mom. I’m not human anymore. I’m a Pelkon. Yeah, they’re mammals, and surprisingly they’re actually related to humanity genetically, but otherwise, I’m an alien.”

Joyce was quiet for a moment, before wistfully murmuring, “I was looking forward to being a grandmother. But with you…” She waved a hand at Buffy. “I guess that isn’t in the cards anymore.”

Willow piped up. “Actually, with modern genetic engineering techniques – I mean, modern for the time period the ship is from, not modern day Earth -- it might be possible to hybridize…” Everyone glared at her. “Shutting up now.”

“Yeah, thanks, Will.” Xander chuckled. “So anyway, like we said, our lives on earth are basically over.”

“What about Buffy’s duty as a Slayer? She can’t just abandon…” Giles began, only to be cut off by Buffy.

“Giles, I was someone else entirely tonight for a whole bunch of hours. Hours when I wasn’t a Slayer.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “So, what happens when there’s no Slayer?”

“Another is called…” Giles said absently. “I need to make a phone call.” He gestured toward the phone. “May I? I’ll pay you back for the charges.”

“Uh… yes, sure, go ahead.” Joyce said. She returned her attention to Buffy and the other two children. “So, if you aren’t planning on trying to live a normal life, what will you be doing instead?”

“Basically, we’ve decided to live on the ship permanently since we wouldn’t fit in down here on Earth.” Xander said. “We’re going to formally take on the roles we’ve been thrust into. I’ve got the knowledge and the memories and the education of an experienced starship captain in my head, so I’m going to be a starship captain.”

Xander glanced over at Giles, who wasn’t paying attention, then smiled at Joyce. “Come on, Mrs. Summers, you’ve heard this one. I know it. To explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and civilizations. To boldly go where no one has gone before.” He quoted.

“But…” Joyce turned from Xander to Buffy. “You’re leaving the entire planet? I’ll never see you again!”

“Actually, mom…” Buffy said, hesitant. “I, uh, want you to come with us. We can pack everything up and live on the ship. There’s plenty of room. We can set you up in your own quarters, or you and I can move into one of the family suites. We won’t have to worry about food or utilities, there’s a couple of gyms, a swimming pool, gardens… the computer has an entire database of entertainment possibilities. Want to watch a movie? Or see a play? I’m even sure we could pick up cable signals from orbit if we wanted. Plus, it’s not like coming back down to Earth for a visit or a vacation or what-have-you would be hard, right?” Buffy’s eyes were beseeching.

“Wait, you want me to live on a spaceship?” Joyce asked, confused.

“We were thinking at least you and Giles. I don’t really care about my folks still being on the ground,” Xander admitted. “And I don’t think Willow’s folks would ever consider relocating. But it would make you safer. It would get you out of Sunnydale, at least.”

“But I can’t just go live on a spaceship!?!” Joyce said. She still looked confused. “I mean, my gallery…”

“Bring it all with you. We’ll record all the pieces your gallery owns into the database to preserve them. Close your shop. We’ll give you a space to open up a new gallery on the ship, using either the real things, reproductions, or holo-prints.” Willow said, smiling. “And like Buffy said, if you want to go on an acquisitions trip, well, it’s a lot easier to travel when you’re teleporting than – say – flying in a plane or driving in a car. Want to go Paris to talk to artists there? Or Vienna? You can be there in an instant and back before dinner!”

“But… but…” Joyce’s resolve was crumbling as she began to see the possibilities. “What would I do most of the time on a spaceship? Really?”

“Whatever you like.” Buffy shrugged. “Want to learn a new language? Or earn a new college degree? Want to learn how to play, I don’t know… uh… soccer? Or racquetball?”

“Buffy, I think I’m a little old to pick up a team sport. And racquetball was always more your father’s thing.” Joyce shook her head. “It would take months to get the house and the gallery packed up, then put on the market, and then sold…”

“So? We have months.” Buffy said. “And as for being too old, well…”

“What?” Joyce’s eyes narrowed.

“I think what Buffy’s hinting at is the medical technology available onboard.” Willow said. “Its from a thousand years in the future. Barring accident or misadventure, the average human lifespan in the ICS is around 160 years, and people don’t start getting “old” – you know, gray hair and arthritis and such -- until they hit about 110 years. You’re, what, 44?”

Joyce smirked. “I’m 41, thanks.” She looked back at Buffy. “So, you’re going to make me young again, and are offering me access to the entire world when it comes to art and travel. And all I have to do is sell the house and close the gallery.”

“Just about,” Buffy admitted.

Joyce sighed, resigned to what’s happening. “When do we start packing?”

“I’ll send a couple of service drones down to pack up all the big things. For tonight, though, you just need to grab an overnight bag. Your toothbrush, makeup if you want, a couple days clothing. Once we’re on board, we can make sure you have everything you need in the long term. Other than, you know, anything personal you want from the house or the gallery. We can have that brought up in a couple of days.”

“Service drones?” Joyce asked, still a bit stunned by it all.

“They’re robots. High functioning, very smart robots. Not really artificially intelligent like Dawn, but more like… virtually intelligent. They’re smart, they just can’t learn.” Buffy said.

“Oh, right. Virtually intelligent. Sure.” Joyce nodded. “And they’ll pack the house for us?”

“Oh, sure. They have open programming. You tell them to do something, and how you want it done, and they’ll do it. If they encounter something they don’t know how to handle, they’ll contact us and ask for further directions. We can even have Dawn monitor their progress and issue updates if necessary.” At Joyce’s astonished look, Buffy continued. “It’s okay, mom. You’ll get used to the weird eventually. Trust me, Xander and Willow went through it to. I remember, back when they…” Buffy began, only to be interrupted by Giles.

“I just got finished talking to Roger Windham-Pryce at the Council’s headquarters in London. He tells me that there is, in fact, a new Slayer. She and her Watcher, a man named Sam Zabuto, were finishing their cleansing of Kingston, Jamaica, before coming here.”

“Finish their… That sounds like she’s been active a lot longer than a couple of hours,” Xander said.

“Yes, well. She apparently was called towards the end of last Spring, when Buffy confronted the Master.” Giles took his glasses off and started wiping at them with a handkerchief.

“You mean when I drowned. When Xander revived me.” Buffy said. She was quiet for a moment, and then added, “That makes sense. I was technically dead for a couple of minutes.”

“You were **_what?_** ” Joyce demanded, her voice shrill. “Did you just say you were dead?”

“Only for a couple of minutes. Xander has CPR training and was able to revive me. Then we went back to the school and kicked the Master’s ass.” Buffy shrugged, as if drowning and being revived were a common everyday thing.

Joyce looked at Xander, who only nodded. “Me and Willow were CPR certified down at the Y when we were freshmen. Willow insisted.” He glances at Willow for confirmation, and the girl nodded enthusiastically.

“Young lady, once everything is settled, you and I are going to sit down over a cup of coffee and some cake and have a long, long talk about what’s been going on with your life.” Joyce gave her daughter one last wistful look. “I guess I better go grab my bag.”

Buffy, Xander, Willow, and Giles watched Joyce head upstairs for a moment, before turning back to one another. “Okay, so the Hellmouth is going to have some coverage. This is good.”

“Yes, well, since we’re not even sure you’re a Slayer anymore, I suppose that is a good thing.” Giles confirmed. “We need to test you, by the way, to see if you’ve retained any of your former abilities.”

“I’m cool with that, I guess.” Buffy nodded.

“In the meantime, you should go grab an overnight bag yourself, G-Man.” Xander grinned. “Unless you trust the ship to provide for you.”

“Trust the ship to provide for me.” Giles repeated, muttering. “Yes, I do suppose I should go and do that. I’ll call when I’m ready for… what’s the phrase? ‘Beaming?’ Bloody fan lingo…”

“Technically, its not called that, but we’ve been using a lot of Star Trek terms for things. Its… well, it comes more naturally.” Willow said.

“Here, Giles.” Buffy called up the haptic interface on her wrist and tapped some commands. She then held out her hand and a small soft-looking object fell into it. “This is a comm-whig. You put it in your ear.” Buffy turned her head and pointed, allowing Giles to see that she had a similar object already in place. “We have to get back to the ship soon, so when you’re all packed and ready for pickup, just tap this and say, ‘Giles to Far Traveler.’ We’ll coordinate transport for you at that point.”

Giles stared at the object she handed him. “You know, I want to see this vessel of yours, but I’m not completely convinced to stay permanently.” He pushed the thing into his left ear, feeling it conform to his auditory canal. Amazingly, it didn’t muffle the ambient sound around him at all.

“Think about it, G-Man. That’s all we can ask.” Xander said, patting the older man on the arm.

**xxxXXxxx**

**Author's Note:**

>  **Author's Note:** Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the property of Warner Brothers in conjunction with Mutant Enemy Productions. Stargate SG-1 is the property of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in conjunction with Double-Secret Productions, the Gekko Film Group, Sony Pictures Television, and the Showtime Network.
> 
> While presented as being created by a poorly disguised fictional version of J. Michael Straczynski, the universe of Far Traveler, the characters, alien species, ships, worlds and creatures found in that universe are wholly the creation of the author as part of his Hundred Worlds series of science fiction novels; no insult is intended to Mr. Straczynski (for whom the author has the greatest of respect) nor his seminal work, Babylon 5 (which remains one of the author’s favorite works of television ever).
> 
> **Author's Note the Second:** I know you folks were probably hoping for a new chapter of Origin Story, or perhaps an addition to one of m other uncompleted stories, but like I said, when inspiration hits, you write what it created. For some reason, my brain told me to write an answer to the “Ship of the Line” challenge found on the Twisting the Hellmouth fanfiction archive.
> 
> I will be continuing this story as I can, just like the others.


End file.
